By Sophia Braccio/News21
PHOENIX — Filling out a job application. Leasing an apartment. Registering for TSA PreCheck.
Life’s paperwork-laden milestones can be nearly impossible for people with criminal records. For many human trafficking survivors, those records are a result of trying to survive.
Jamie Rosseland is a survivor who now works as an anti-trafficking consultant and advocate. She used to carry a criminal record, and with it, a constant burden to share her life’s darkest moments with any stranger who ran a background check.
“I’m just supposed to kind of come out of that and have to build my life back up brick by brick, while someone keeps knocking the bricks over,” Rosseland said.
Of 413 U.S. sex and labor trafficking survivors surveyed by the anti-trafficking organization Polaris, 42% reported having some type of criminal record. The 2023 data showed that among them, 90% said all or some of their arrests were related directly to their exploitation.
In 2019, Rosseland said, she was one of the first in her Florida county to have a petition granted under the state’s survivor record relief legislation. The 2013 law lets a person ask a court to expunge records resulting from trafficking.
Forty-eight states and Washington, D.C., have laws to help survivors get record relief, though criteria vary widely. Starting in January, the federal Trafficking Survivors Relief Act established a pathway to vacate federal convictions and expunge survivors’ arrest records for certain criminal charges.
So far, the federal route is relatively uncharted, but advocates say these laws can be crucial for a survivor to build a successful, independent life.
In the eyes of the law
In 2000, Congress passed the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, which established human trafficking as a distinct federal crime. It laid out the legal definition for sex trafficking: A commercial sex act induced by force, fraud, or coercion for people 18 and older, or any commercial sex act with no requirement of force, fraud, or coercion for minors.
A sex act is considered commercial when someone involved receives something of value, like money or a place to stay.
Sarah Scroggins works with adult sex trafficking survivors as program manager of the Atlanta-based nonprofit BELOVED. Law enforcement and society continue to view people who have been exploited as perpetrators rather than victims of a crime, she said.
Survivors who come to BELOVED often have arrest or conviction records. “Their exploiters are very good at pinning things on them,” Scroggins said. “‘You drive the car, you hold the gun, you pull the drugs,’ and all of those things that go with exploitation.”
Programs like Freedom Network USA’s Survivor Reentry Project connect survivors looking for post-conviction record relief to pro bono lawyers.
Some charges come as an indirect result of trafficking, Freedom Network USA’s Co-executive Director Jean Bruggeman said. A trafficker may use addiction as a means of coercion, for instance, and the drug use might continue after leaving the situation.
“Folks end up with these criminal charges, but our legal system is very disjointed,” Bruggeman said.
All states but Alaska and Iowa have some survivor criminal record relief laws. Some allow for petitions involving a wide range of charges; others offer relief for only prostitution. Minnesota does not have a trafficking-specific law, but allows for any victim of a crime to petition for expungement. In Missouri and South Dakota, only people who were under 18 at the time of their arrest are eligible.
The recent federal law offers a pathway for records relief for those with certain federal offenses who committed them as a result of trafficking. Bruggeman said while lower-level offenses are prosecuted at the state level, this law will help survivors with federal charges that are often more significant.
The process
If a survivor has a criminal record eligible for relief, Bruggeman said, they still have to find appropriate legal services. Cost is a major barrier, so survivors often need pro bono services.
The Justice Restoration Center provides no-cost legal services for survivors in Florida and Tennessee. Brent Woody, executive director and lead attorney, said they’re booked out for new clients into March 2027.
The center takes on about 20 new clients per month, some with criminal records going back to the 1980s.
Woody, who worked on Rosseland’s expungement, said sometimes once a client starts the process, they need to take a break because of the trauma that comes up when retelling their story.
Scroggins said that fear can keep the women she works with from seeking record relief, because often survivors must recount very specific details and provide proof of their coercion.
“It’s surprising how hesitant women are to start that process, and I think that there’s a lot of fear and stigma around the justice system,” Scroggins said.
Once a petition for vacatur or expungement is submitted, it can take months or even years to hear back in states without a response-time limit. For Rosseland, the whole process took about two years.
“You get this petition drafted, and then you have to reread it, and then you have to get it notarized, right?” she said. “And then it gets sent off to the state attorney’s office, and then you just have to wait, and you will wait a long time.”
Because of strict privacy rules to protect survivors, petitions submitted through the Trafficking Survivors Relief Act are sealed. It’s unclear how many survivors have gone through the process.
Most states have other vacatur, expungement or set-aside laws, which create a framework for the courts to use when accepting petitions under survivor-specific record relief laws, Bruggeman said. The federal government does not, so petitions for record relief are a “whole new thing” for federal courts.
“We’re still working on really trying to educate (federal) prosecutors about this new law and this new remedy, and encourage them to join in these motions, and I think that’s … going to take some time,” she said.
Freedom Network USA’s program, the Survivor Reentry Project, isn’t accepting new intakes at all. The federal grant that supports it expires in September.
Bruggeman said the Office for Victims of Crime, overseen by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs, disburses funds set aside by Congress for anti-human trafficking grants. Freedom Network USA expected to reapply for a fiscal 2026 grant in the spring, but the solicitations have not been released, she said.
An Office of Justice Programs official said the fiscal 2026 grant solicitations, known as notices of funding opportunities, are posted online on a rolling basis.
As of July, the Survivor Reentry Project had not applied for an Office for Victims of Crime grant, and an alternate funding source had not been secured.
Without financial support for legal services, Bruggeman said, survivors won’t have access to the help that records relief laws offer.
“We can pass all the great laws in the world, but if we don’t have the ability to implement them, then it’s just a piece of paper,” Bruggeman said.
A piece of restoration
Survivors of human trafficking are more likely to struggle to earn a livable wage, the Polaris 2023 survey of survivors found.
“Of survey respondents, 43 percent were making under $25,000 per year, compared to 26 percent of the general US population,” according to the report.
Criminal records appear on background checks, making it difficult and potentially retraumatizing for people to apply for jobs.
“Often survivors will avoid completing an application at an employer that does a background check because they simply don’t want to discuss,” Bruggeman said. “It’s either too traumatic, too shameful, too difficult.”
A trafficking-related criminal record could also mark a survivor as a target for another exploiter.
With record relief, the doors open to employment opportunities, which can lead to a new financial future and better housing.
Woody said he’s constantly discovering new reasons why survivors seek criminal record relief. Passing a background check may allow a mother to finally volunteer at her child’s school, he said, or help someone pursue their education goals.
There are also the intangible possibilities.
Record relief can help heal what Rosseland called a “moral injury” someone may carry from being arrested in connection with, incarcerated for, or convicted of a crime.
It’s a type of relief Woody said many of his clients don’t even think about until they have the weight of a criminal record lifted off their shoulders.
“There’s just something about the system acknowledging to someone who was wronged by the system, and putting that in an order, a court order, that is life-changing,” Woody said.
News21 reporter Sophie Schaeffer contributed to this reporting.
This report is part of Carnegie-Knight News21’s “Unsettled” project. For more stories of hardship and hope in America’s housing crisis, visit www.unsettled.news21.com.
