Makenzie Winger was spending Valentine’s Day 2019 with her then fiancé when she received an email from her department head at Taylor University. The email described something called a Justice Fellowship at a nonprofit legal organization in Indianapolis. “I stopped everything we were doing to read my fiancé the job description,” Makenzie recalls. “It was an opportunity to continue to learn more about justice issues, to step into the legal field for the first time, and to do work that felt meaningful. I also wouldn’t have to worry about finding housing. It just sounded like the perfect job for this phase of my life.”

Several times a day I find myself saying, “We’ve all made mistakes; it just looks a little different from one person to another and doesn’t always become public knowledge.” So many people are burdened by poor decisions from years ago, decisions often driven by addiction, poor examples, generational poverty, or being “young and dumb.” They enter the doors for our Expungement Help Desk in the basement of the City County Building expecting to be judged yet again, to be told they don’t qualify for expungement, or to be told that, if they do, it’s going to be costly to make it happen. It is such a joy to dispel the misconception that getting an expungement is too good to be true. Oftentimes, I even get to help these visitors make the “second chance” espoused by the statute become a reality. That reality means a better job, housing in a safer neighborhood, professional certification, going on a field trip with their children, and so much more.

When Stan was only 19-years-old, a group of guys he hung out with one night got picked up for breaking into a building. These men—who already had cases pending and who were in search of lighter sentences—claimed that Stan was with them during the break-in. Scared, but lacking the financial resources to effectively defend against the charges, Stan took the first deal that was offered to him.