A criminal record is something that you carry with you for the rest of your life. It could potentially have a lasting hindering effect on your life, especially because the punishment of those crimes has a lasting effect, longer than what may have been intended. The reality is that those minor offences have a much greater lifelong impact than you may have realised. The truth is that a criminal record will prevent you from moving on from that chapter in your life and leaving that part of your life in your past. But what no one tells you, it is easier than most people realise to get a criminal record. In this discussion, we talk about the expungement process in South Africa, the requirements, and why it is sometimes difficult to get through the system when on the journey of clearing one’s name. Director of Criminal Expungements at the Department of Justice, Liana Nieuwoudt, joins Morio Sanyane to explain the processes and issues with expunging criminal records.