If we can't show you where it says so, we don't say it.

Our standard

Every fact on this site links to the place it came from: a law, a court or agency page, or the company's own words. Every page shows the date we last checked it. A record can't be published until a separate check has opened each source and confirmed it says what we say. When the source is unclear, we say so instead of guessing.

Who we write for

People with arrest or conviction records, and the families, counselors, reentry workers and lawyers who help them. Many read on a phone, under stress, sometimes with little time before a deadline. So we lead with the answer, keep sentences short, explain legal terms the first time they appear, and put the exception right after the rule.

Where facts come from

In order of preference:

1. The law itself: statutes, constitutions and regulations, from the legislature's or agency's own website. When an official site won't load, we use a recognized copy of the code (Justia, Cornell's Legal Information Institute or FindLaw's codes) and name it as the publisher.
2. Courts and government agencies: court self-help pages and fee schedules, state election offices, the EEOC, the Federal Trade Commission, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the FDIC and others.
3. Companies, in their own words: careers sites, job postings on their own sites, background check notices, account agreements and fee schedules.
4. Membership lists published by the organization itself, such as the Second Chance Business Coalition.

We never cite law firm blogs, forums, review sites, “companies that hire felons” lists, Wikipedia or AI chatbots. We may read them to find a lead, then confirm it on an official source or leave it out.

How every fact is checked

Every record goes through two separate steps before it can appear on the site:

1. Research. The record is built from the sources above. Each claim carries its citation, and key claims carry the exact words from the source, so anyone can find them on the page.
2. An independent second check. A separate review, which didn't write the record, opens every cited source and confirms each number, date, section and quote. It looks for newer laws and amendments, softens any general claim the sources don't fully support, and fixes or removes anything it can't confirm. The record is marked as passed only after this step, and our publishing system won't show a record that hasn't passed.

A few rules we don't bend:

• A number, such as a sentence, fee, dollar line or waiting period, must appear in the source. We don't compute or estimate one.
• We describe the law in force today. When a new law has passed but hasn't taken effect, we say what changes and when.
• “Every state” means we checked every state. Otherwise we say “usually,” “in most states” or “in the states we checked.”
• “May” stays “may.” We don't turn a possibility into a promise.
• “Not published” means we found no public statement. It never means a company doesn't hire people with records.

How we use AI and software

We use AI tools to help find sources, read long statutes, draft records and run the second check, and we use software to keep pages current. These tools work only from the sources a page cites, and they follow the same rules as everything else here: no fact goes up without a citation, and none goes up until the separate check confirms it against that citation. Nothing on this site is generated on the fly or written from an AI model's memory.

How we keep pages current

Every page shows the date it was last checked, and every kind of record has a re-check deadline:

• Bank accounts and voting rights: every 90 days
• Record-clearing law: every 120 days
• Employers, “Can I” answers, felony classes and “Is it a felony?” pages: every 180 days

Every week, a check opens the sources we cite and flags any that break, move or change, and those records move to the front of the line. A page more than 30 days past its deadline says so at the top rather than looking current. Each check is logged, so a date can't change without one.

How we write

• People first. In our own words we write “people with records” or “people with a felony conviction.” We use “felon” only where it's the term people search for, such as a page title, or where we quote the law.
• Plain language. Short sentences, everyday words, and legal terms explained when they first appear. Arrest, charge and conviction always mean different things here.
• No hype. No “felon-friendly” badges, hiring odds or star ratings for employers or banks. No public data supports them. Our state rankings score laws, not companies, and print every point.

What we don't do

• We don't give legal advice or tell anyone what to do in their own case. We aren't a law firm, and using the site doesn't create a lawyer-client relationship.
• Our tools explain general rules. They don't decide whether you qualify for anything; a court, agency or employer does.
• We don't run background checks, keep records about individuals or sell personal information. We aren't a consumer reporting agency.
• We don't accept payment to list, rank, describe or remove anyone.

Independence and money

Second Chance Index is free to read. We pay for the research with clearly labeled sponsorships and, on some bank account pages, labeled paid links. A sponsor gets one card beside a page's content, marked Sponsored. It can't buy or change a fact, a label, a ranking, whether something is listed, the order of a list, a correction or a removal, and it never sees our work before it runs. A paid link says so next to the link. Details are in our disclosures and on our sponsorship page.

Corrections

If something is wrong, out of date or unclear, email contact@secondchanceindex.com with the page and what you found. We check every report against an official source. When we confirm an error, we fix the page, log the correction with its date, and list it on What changed. We don't quietly rewrite facts.

Companies and agencies

If you represent an employer, bank, court or agency we cover, send us a link to your official policy or statement. We'll review it against our sources and update the page if it changes the facts. We don't publish claims that aren't on the record, and we don't remove accurate, sourced information on request.

Accessibility

We set body text in Atkinson Hyperlegible, a typeface made for readers with low vision. We build every page for phones first and aim to meet the WCAG 2.2 AA accessibility standard. If something is hard to read or use, tell us at contact@secondchanceindex.com.

Who is responsible

Second Chance Index is published by AI Laws By State LLC, 1309 Coffeen Ave, Ste 1200, Sheridan, WY 82801. Questions about these standards go to contact@secondchanceindex.com. See also how we label employers and bank accounts, our terms of use and our privacy policy.