Mistakes happen. Many people have gotten themselves into trouble at some point in time, but that doesn’t mean they deserve to be treated like they are a danger to society. The fact remains that certain criminal charges can change the entire course of your life. A criminal record often serves as a barrier, limiting an individual’s employment, educational, and housing opportunities forever. The severity of the “trouble” determines its impact. In Texas, some convictions can be expunged, or cleared from your criminal record.
However, certain criminal offenses cannot be expunged. These offenses include but are not limited to:
- Sex crimes
- Aggravated kidnapping
- Murder
- Human trafficking
- Child endangerment
- Family violence crimes
- Stalking
The state of Texas does not allow these kinds of convictions to be expunged from a criminal record, with very few exceptions for minors. Violent, sexual, and child endangerment crimes will show up on a background check for public safety purposes. These types of crimes can’t be hidden because it’s not in the interest of society to remove them from criminal records; in general, offenses that involve children, sexual assault, and violence will stay on your record forever. DWIs are also ineligible for expunction–although they will fall off your DMV record after seven years, they’ll remain on your criminal record.
If your conviction isn’t shown on the list above, and you’re interested in removing it from your criminal record, you can see if you’re eligible for an expunction at easyexpunctions.com.
