This journal article examines how to protect the benefits for youth of destroying records, while still ensuring that researchers, advocates, and decision-makers have access to accurate data.

Through an original fifty-state analysis of how juvenile expungement laws handle preservation of information for research purposes, and a state case study that quantifies the impact of expungement on data, this article analyzes the impact that different state approaches to expungement have on data and research.

While a handful of states include statutory exemptions for research, these carve outs vary substantially in approach. This Article represents the first time these exemptions have been systemically studied.