Rasa Legal, a Utah-based justice tech innovator that provides affordable legal assistance for record clearances, expungements and rights restoration, launched operations in Arizona, potentially serving more than 2 million people in the state who have a conviction or arrest history.
The startup gives justice-impacted people legal assistance in minutes through the Rasa Legal app, not only offering to help its clients overcome the stigma of a criminal record, seek better-paying jobs and secure safe housing, but also enhancing public safety and the state’s economy. App users can find out what is revealed about them in a background check and check their eligibility for assistance for just $15.
“Over the last few years, I have become extremely passionate about serving justice-involved people and using technology to create impact at scale,” Rasa Legal CEO and Founder Noella Sudbury told scores of attendees at its launch event at Arizona State University’s Watts College of Public Service & Community Solutions. “In September [2022], we launched our software tool, which in under 3 minutes can tell a person just using their name and date of birth what is on their record and whether they might have a chance to be eligible for record clearance.
“In one year,” Sudbury added, “we have helped over 10,000 people across the state of Utah determine their eligibility to move forward with their lives. And today, we are launching in Arizona.”
The launch event included a panel discussion with Phoenix City Councilmember Kevin Robinson, a former Assistant Chief of the Phoenix Police Department; Ryan Thornell, director of the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Re-Entry (ADCRR); Brandy Smith, the director of programs for Arouet Foundation, which serves currently- and formerly-incarcerated women; Kurt Altman, director of Right On Crime, a conservative criminal justice reform initiative; and Nyra Jordan, the social impact investment director for American Family Insurance, who co-sponsored Rasa Legal’s launch event.
The panelists affirmed Rasa Legal’s mission to make record clearance and rights restoration as affordable and accessible as possible and spoke about the myriad ways that sealing records improves public safety and provides meaningful second chances to justice-impacted people.
“If we have 2 million people in Arizona with some form of a criminal record, there are also 40,000 local, state, and federal barriers preventing those people from reintegrating back into society,” Smith said when asked by Sudbury about the difficulties of post-incarceration re-entry. “We know that a criminal record impacts employment, housing and business licenses. But, because of your felonies, you also can’t take cupcakes to your kid’s school. You can’t go with your kid on a field trip.
“Those kinds of collateral consequences,” Smith said, “are devastating our community.”
“I think it’s critically important that we understand what happens with folks and the chances they are not given when they have a criminal background,” Councilmember Robinson, who served in law enforcement for more than 36 years, said to an audience of business and nonprofit leaders, legal professionals, and ASU faculty and students.
The panel discussion was livestreamed on YouTube and offered viewers the opportunity to ask panelists questions about record clearance and its impact on the community.
Sudbury asked Thornell, the state’s corrections director, how he believes offering “fair chances” to people with a criminal history—or holistic, wraparound services that include job training, housing assistance, mentorship, and mental health services, as well as rights restoration and record clearance—improves public safety and how the agency becomes involved in helping incarcerated people prepare for life after prison.
“What we don’t talk about as a corrections staff with the people inside our state prisons is what brought them there from a criminal standpoint. Because it’s not important,” Thornell said. “They’re there, they’re doing their time, they’re doing hopefully something purposeful, and they’re planning for what’s next for them.
“A fair chance,” Thornell said, “is the ability for them to share that with somebody who can make an important decision about them, hopefully for a livable wage. But without a fair chance, they don’t get a chance to share that side of them.”
During the panel discussion, the Reclaim Your Future campaign and its coalition partners from the Arizona Justice Project and Community Legal Services led a free Continuing Legal Education (CLE) session to help train attorneys and other legal professionals to file marijuana expungement petitions in Arizona. Rasa Legal ended its launch event at ASU with a free record clearance clinic and resource fair.
Speak Your Mind
You must be logged in to post a comment.