The Rehabilitation Of Offenders Committee has been considering the expungement of records for deserving offenders since 2019.

Chairman of the Committee, Ronald Campbell said expungement is available to first time offenders who have served their time.  He explained, “two years after you would have spent your time.  You have two years, you have no reoccurrence. no other offence, no involvement with the police.  You can apply to the committee, we can look into the matter and you can have your record expunged.”

The Committee considers all matters expect rape, incest, murder, treason and armed robbery.  The bulk of the applications for record expungement are received from drug offenders.  According to Campbell the expungements are not guaranteed out of The Bahamas.  “We cannot control what happens on the international scene.  And so whenever persons go and apply for visas we tell them one, be truthful let them know what your case is all about because most likely they know.”

The Committee Chairman assured that the records of persons penalized for violating curfew during the pandemic will be cleared by next year.  He said, “this is a crying board and when I say that I mean that persons who come here they come with tears in their eyes, cannot get a job, they want their life back on line, they would have paid society and now they want to straighten up and fly right.”

Approximately 160 people have had their records expunged since 2022.