This journal article out of Santa Clara University identifies and estimates the “second chance gap” in Washington's “expungements” to determine the share of individuals eligible for relief who haven’t expunged records because of hurdles in the petition process.

To estimate it, the authors used research, official guides to the law, and practice expertise to model the eligibility criteria for vacation set forth in the law and applied it to a sample of records obtained through a records request from the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) of Washington.

To carry out their analysis, the authors ascertained charge eligibility based on reading the code and using court guides and practice, inferred whether a person had a charge pending, and made assumptions about the estimated date of completion of the sentence based on the passage of time derived from practice.