The Criminal Records (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act has been amended to strengthen and modernise the expungement framework and afford more Jamaicans with criminal convictions an opportunity to have their records cleared.

Expungement is the legal process through which eligible criminal convictions are removed from an individual's police record, allowing persons who have met the eligibility requirements and have demonstrated rehabilitation to move forward without the limitations of a past conviction.

Director, Legal Education, Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Julia Wedderburn, told a Jamaica Information Service (JIS) Think Tank on Thursday (July 30), that the process allows persons to access benefits that would reasonably have been withheld because of a criminal record, such as educational opportunities, employment, travel and housing.