Recovering drug addicts trust Rudy Carey when he talks about change. He has experience that gives him credibility. But after four years as a substance abuse counselor in northern Virginia, his employer called him to the office and told him he could no longer work there.
“I felt like my life was just sucked out of me,” said Carey, who lives in Stafford County, Virginia.
The problem had nothing to do with a relapse. Carey has not used drugs or gotten into trouble with the law since completing a treatment program in 2007, nor did his employer have job performance complaints. Carey had excellent reviews and won a Counselor of the Year award. Rather, Virginia law seemed to make him ineligible for his position because of a 2004 felony conviction. This new consequence, never imposed by a judge or jury, devastated him.
He had worked hard to turn his life around after leaving prison more than a decade earlier. He had enrolled in college and earned a degree, managed cases at a homeless shelter, talked to teenagers in juvenile detention, and volunteered as a pastor at his church. His counseling career was the culmination of this effort, and he was good at it. But suddenly he was done — forever. And that law is still on the books. More than 100 “barrier crimes” permanently bar people for convictions ranging from hitting a police officer, Carey’s crime, to more obscure offenses such as hazing and reckless boat driving.
Carey fought back with a lawsuit against the state. My Arlington-based public interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, represented him for free. But the courts refused to give him a trial.
Relief finally came in 2023, when Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) issued a pardon, clearing Carey to start counseling again. Youngkin’s signature saved him. Now Youngkin must sign one more document to help others in similar situations.
Virginia Senate Bill 826, which passed the House and Senate with unanimous votes in February, is now sitting on the governor’s desk.
Youngkin has until March 26 to approve the measure, which would improve job prospects for people with criminal histories. It would let them petition regulators for a decision before they invest in expensive training, and it would remove vague licensing criteria such as “good moral character” clauses. And, for healthcare applicants, it would require regulators to weigh rehabilitation factors.
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All of these reforms would be big improvements. If the state wants to bar someone from otherwise lawful work, regulators should at least consider each case separately and base denials on individual circumstances.
The bill would not fix everything. The “barrier law” that affected Carey is a problem for another day. Yet all the provisions in SB826 are fair. People who break the law should pay a price. But once they settle their debt, society must make room for their return. Everyone wins where there’s a chance for a fresh start.
Andrew Ward is an attorney at the Institute for Justice in Arlington, Virginia.