In yet more evidence that the trend towards harsh sentencing and long term sanctions for even minor offenses, the Rhode Island House of Representatives passed a bill to extend expungement options to the state’s residents.

Over the vigorous objections of Rhode Island’s attorney general, the state police and the governor, the House voted 46 to 17 in favor of a bill to quash and destroy the records of criminal cases where the court handed down a deferred sentence, usually in exchange for the accused by pleading no contest or guilty to their charges and sparing the state the expense of a criminal trial.

The bill, to be taken up by the Senate, requires the automatic destruction of all qualified criminal records at the end of the deferral period — which typically lasts five years. These new procedures would apply regardless of the seriousness of the crime or the criminal history of the offender as long as he or she avoided any trouble during that deferral period.

Rhode Island’s current law allows for the expungement of a single nonviolent offense from the record of a first-time offender five years after he or she has completed a sentence for a misdemeanor, or 10 years after completing a sentence for a felony.

Since 2000, 28,417 criminal cases were expunged from the public record under the present law’s provisions. In 2006 there were a total of 4,360 misdemeanors and 625 felonies removed from the public record.