First Step Implementation Act of 2025

Sharing information from a sealed juvenile record without permission would become a federal crime. The penalty would be a fine, up to a year in prison, or both.

People serving adult sentences for crimes committed before age 18 could not be shut out of classes or job training. The rule covers any program open to the general prison population.

Congress made some drug and gun sentences shorter in 2018, but only for crimes committed after December 21 of that year. Prisoners sentenced for earlier crimes could now ask a judge for the shorter term.

Today any past drug felony can raise the minimum sentence in a federal drug case. Only a serious drug felony or a violent felony would count instead.

The safety valve lets a judge sentence below the minimum, but a person's criminal history can block it. A judge could set that block aside by putting the reasons in writing, unless the person has a past serious drug or violent felony.

A person convicted as an adult for something done before age 18 could ask for a shorter sentence after serving 20 years. Requests are capped at three, five years apart, and release would come with at least five years of supervision.

The court would seal the records on its own, with nothing for the person to file. It only happens if there is no new conviction and no open case.

For a nonviolent offense committed before age 15, the Justice Department would have to ask the court to destroy the records. The court would have to agree.

If a case is dropped or the judge finds the child not delinquent, the court would order the records destroyed at the same time.

Once a record is sealed or erased, the case counts as if it never took place, so the person could answer 'no' on most job and housing forms. Police jobs, security clearances, and military vetting are exceptions, and fingerprints and DNA samples are never covered.

Anyone under 18 who asks a court to seal or erase a record would get a lawyer at public cost. Adults could get one if the judge decides the hearing is complicated.

Juvenile court information already cannot be released for job, license, or bonding checks. Requests tied to getting into a school would be added to that list.

Police could still open a sealed record to investigate a case or to screen someone for a law enforcement, national security, or high-trust job. For the first year after sealing, they could open it for any police purpose.

If a person sues over an arrest whose record was destroyed, the court would start by assuming the agency has a full defense. The person could still argue that the record would not have cleared the agency.

Sealing and erasure would only cover nonviolent offenses, so homicide, sex offenses, kidnapping, robbery, arson, and terrorism cases would not qualify. A juvenile who was tried and convicted as an adult could never have that conviction sealed.

You could ask for a copy of the federal record an employer pulls on you. The Justice Department would have 30 days to look into any error you flag and report the fix.

An arrest more than two years old with no recorded result could not be sent to an employer. That limit would not apply to police, national security, or high-trust jobs.

The Justice Department could charge for employment-related record checks to cover its costs. The bill does not cap the amount.

Federal courts would publish how many requests were granted and denied each year, starting two years after the bill became law. The numbers would be broken out by race, ethnicity, gender, and type of offense, with no petitioner named.

The new background-check protections would not work until the rules exist. The Attorney General would have one year to issue them and would report to Congress after two years.

Crime victims' rights law would apply to every sentence-cut hearing under this bill. Prison officials would also have to notify victims when a person sentenced for a teenage crime becomes eligible.