Enacts "Cecilia's act for rights in the sex trades" relating to the decriminalization of sex work; repealer

2025 Regular Session Introduced by Jabari Brisport and 6 co-sponsors

The bill requires SBI to withhold any expunged criminal history information from responses when an expungement is unprocessed, preventing harm from delays.

REFERRED TO CODES

Summary — S.2513 (as reported by Senate Law & Public Safety Committee, 10/21/2024)

Note on sources: The materials provided include several inconsistent items (different titles, jurisdictions, and a Massachusetts docket). This summary focuses on the substantive bill text and committee statement contained in the New Jersey Senate packet for S.2513 (the version reported by the Senate Law & Public Safety Committee on 10/21/2024), which amends the criminal-history background check statute (C.53:1‑20.6) concerning expungements.

Purpose

To prevent dissemination of incorrect criminal-history information when the State Bureau of Identification (SBI) has not yet processed a court-issued expungement order. The bill is intended to avoid harming eligible individuals (in employment, licensing, housing, volunteer placement, etc.) when there is a backlog or delay in SBI processing.

Key provisions

Amends section 2 of P.L.1985, c.169 (C.53:1‑20.6).

Requires the State Bureau of Identification (SBI) to, upon receipt of any request for criminal history background information, verify whether the subject has an unprocessed order of expungement issued under current law.

If there is an unprocessed expungement order, the SBI must promptly respond to the requester but the response:

Must not include any criminal history record background information ordered expunged;
Must not include any reference to such criminal history information; and
Must not reference the existence of the unprocessed expungement order itself.

Clarifies that SBI is not required to create a new record in its system for records subject to an expungement order if those records are not already present in SBI’s records/system.

Committee amendments removed a narrow statutory cross‑reference and clarified that the rule applies to all expungement orders issued under current law.

Who is affected

Individuals who have been granted expungement by a court but whose records have not yet been processed by the SBI.

Requesters of criminal history checks (employers, licensing boards, volunteer organizations, landlords, government agencies, and private entities).

The New Jersey State Police / SBI (administrative responsibilities and procedures for handling requests).

Expected impact

Reduces the risk that unprocessed expungements will result in dissemination of adverse criminal-history information that could preclude employment, licensing, housing, or volunteer opportunities.

Places an operational duty on SBI to screen for unprocessed expungement orders and to tailor responses accordingly; it does not mandate creation of new SBI records when none exist.

Aims to protect privacy and statutory expungement relief even when technical processing lags occur.

Procedural / timeline notes

The bill, as amended, was reported favorably by the Senate Law & Public Safety Committee on October 21, 2024, and is identical to Assembly Bill A3881 (1R) as reported that day.

The act states it would take effect immediately upon enactment.

If you want, I can: (1) produce a redline showing how the statutory text would read after amendment, (2) summarize A3881 to confirm identical language, or (3) prepare a short memo on implementation issues for SBI (e.g., database checks, requester notifications).