End Background discrimination for rehabilitated people

People need to be allowed to fully move on from past mistakes, arrests, and crimes (non-felons) to gain quality employment. If people can't move on with their lives and secure a good job then they will continue to stay in that SAME CIRCLE of crime and hopelessness, and they will continue to depend on the tax payer for support. The conservatives don't want people to bleed the government (prison costs, food stamps, unemployment, welfare, and so on) but if people cannot secure a decent job then this problem will continue. Everyone deserves liberty and everyone deserves to have it back even if it was once lost… FREE FROM DISCRIMINATION. Using someone's past criminal background against them is a form of discrimination. After so many years (seven or ten years for example) everyone deserves the right to live a normal life. If you PAID YOUR DEBT TO SOCIETY, why should Virginia citizens continue to be punished and imprisoned by a criminal background for the rest of their life?
Having a permanent record that can never be sealed is not a deterrent to crime because when you are young you are not thinking of the rest of your life. Plus, you never know why people make these mistakes. Maybe a child was sexually abused all his/her life and from 18 to 24 he/she was angry at the world and was arrested for heroin addiction (which is a disease). Maybe someone was unemployed and stole diapers for his/her new born and never made a mistake again as long as he or she lived. Good people make mistakes sometimes.
What is a deterrent to crime is having something to lose, like a second chance for example. Without a second chance and without anything to lose why would anyone leave a life of crime or want to become a productive citizen? Think about... if you had a DUI or you stole a magazine from 7-eleven when you were 18 or 21, why should you still be paying for it when you are 30, 40 or 50 and want to contribute to society as a productive citizen? People change and evolve and can’t continue to be haunted and punished by past mistakes for the rest of their lives. If this particular individual can’t get a job at Target, for example, he/she may resort to selling drugs or he’ll just become a welfare case (putting a huge burden on the tax payer). Holding people down leads to more crime because when someone is desperate, broke, and can’t get a decent job that is the person you need to fear the most. That’s the individual likely to commit a crime and never turn their life around. However, if someone were convicted of petty larceny (misdemeanor) six years ago and had only two years to go before he/she could seal his/her record and get a decent job that person would never commit another crime because that person would be so focused on his/her SECOND CHANCE…People need a second chance to reach for.
I understand that there needs to be restrictions and not everyone would be eligible to do this. But for the people who have truly learned from their mistakes and have completely turned their lives around they need a light at the end of the tunnel (so-to-speak). They need that driving force to tow the line and know that in time they can one day have a shot at a normal life and a DECENT JOB, free from discrimination.
People need to be allowed, for example, to seal their record 8 to 10 years after their last misdemeanor conviction in VA.
Imagine a 35 year old father or mother of two, who can’t get a job at Walmart or BB&T, having to explain to their kids that there will be no Christmas this year and that they will have to leave their apartment in 30 days (with nowhere to go) because of a few misdemeanors that he or she made when he or she was in college. At some point the suffering has to end.
I will not stop until this law is changed and I look forward to the day when I can council young offenders that YES you have a reason to change your life and yes there is hope...
This ladies and gentlemen is a deterrent to crime and a promoter of productive citizens.

END THIS DISCRIMINATION and give people a reason to change