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Let’s say you’re arrested in D.C. but never prosecuted for a crime (also known as “no papering”), which happens to about a third of the 40,000 people arrested in the city annually.

That arrest remains on your record, and could affect job and housing applications, access to credit, professional licensing, and more.

You could get that record sealed through a process at the D.C. Superior Court that critics call long, convoluted, and expensive. It legally requires that the petitioner proves why he or she deserves to have the record sealed and a judge has discretion to reject the request.

“That entire process is inconsistent with our values,” said D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser at a press conference on Thursday outlining her proposal to help Washingtonians get a “clean slate and therefore a fair shot at succeeding here in Washington D.C.” At-large Councilmember David Grosso also plans to introduce legislation that would reform the record sealing process, adding expungements to mix.

In Bowser’s proposal, the details of which are still in the works, Bowser wants to mandate the automatic sealing of records for people who’ve been no-papered and for those who have not been convicted of crimes.

While sealing a criminal record means that the information is not available publicly or for third-party background checks, law enforcement, courts, and select professions still have access to it.

Under the current law, many people who have been convicted of a felony or a misdemeanor will never have the chance to get their records sealed because nearly all felonies and dozens of misdemeanors are not eligible. A record of felony drug possession, for instance, cannot be sealed. And for those few types of crimes that are eligible, there are long wait times.

Bowser said on Thursday that she wants to lessen the wait times and have a third-party review board of lawyers and other experts look at the slate of ineligible crimes for record sealing.

She was joined on Thursday by members of her administration and Charles Allen, the chair of the D.C. Council Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety, to announce the proposal, which she said could affect tens of thousands of D.C. residents.

Brian Ferguson, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Returning Citizens Affairs, said the public record don’t currently serve a public safety function. He described a Ward 5 mother who called his office after she was fired because her employer retroactively conducted a background check and found a 2014 conviction for marijuana possession. The records, he said, have “no bearing or reflection on who they are now or who they seek to become if given the chance to play on a level playing field.”

Allen said reform on the issue would make the District safer. “Think about the thousands of D.C. neighbors trying to reenter [from prison] and reenter successfully. We know barriers exist,” he said. “If we can remove those barriers, they will be more successful … When they are more successful, they are less likely to reoffend.”

Allen said the Committee on the Judiciary and Public Safety will hold a hearing this fall on record sealing. Bowser said that her office is still early in the process, and will reach out to law enforcement partners like the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the D.C. Attorney General’s Office, and the Metropolitan Police Department, among others, for input.

This isn’t the only proposal to tackle this issue. At-large Councilmember David Grosso has already drafted legislation that contends with the District’s record sealing and expungement processes, called the Record Sealing Modernization Amendment Act of 2017. He’s planning on introducing it when the council returns on September 19.

The difference between expungement and sealing is that sealed records are still available in the criminal justice system, whereas expungement erases the record entirely. Bowser’s proposal in its current form focuses only on sealing.

Grosso’s bill as drafted would automatically expunge no-paper arrests and cases that don’t result in a conviction, other than some “severe” felonies, 90 days after the case concludes. Additionally, offenses that have since been decriminalized or legalized can be expunged at any time after a petition is filed.

It would also automatically seal most misdemeanor convictions 90 days after the sentence is completed, and two years for more severe misdemeanors and minor felonies. Other felony convictions would have wait times of five, eight, and ten years before a person can file a petition to seal the record. The draft gets rid of the law that makes some crimes ineligible for record sealing, unlike Bowser’s proposal, which seeks to expand eligibility based on the recommendations of a third-party review board.

D.C. already has a “Ban the Box” law, which restricts when an employer is able to ask an applicant about his or her criminal history, and followed it with a bill that prohibits landlords from asking about prior convictions before extending a conditional housing offer.

CM Grosso Draft Version Of Record Sealing Modernization Amendment Act of 2017 by Rachel Kurzius on Scribd