Diversion allows a defendant to earn dismissal of a charge by satisfying conditions set by the prosecutor or court, thereby avoiding conviction. Expungement seals or erases the defendant’s record of arrest or conviction. Some diversion and expungement programs are cost-free, but most are not.

This article examines the promises and pitfalls of diversion and expungement as means to combat mass criminalization. These two mechanisms work in tandem to provide access to a “clean record,” but, the author argues, not enough attention has been paid to the dangers they present due to differential access to clean records based on financial means. The author considers legal challenges to current diversion and expungement processes and argues that (1) the impacts of diversion and expungement programs are more modest than reported and (2) these programs need to be offered at no cost if they are to succeed in achieving the goal of reducing racial disparities in criminal courts.