Allowing landlords, employers, and other important gatekeepers to access information on criminal records can create serious barriers to housing, jobs, and other opportunities. In this talk, Lauren Russell, a Meyer Fellow and Harvard PhD candidate in Public Policy, will introduce a new database that catalogues the evolution of the public and private entities which, starting in the 1970s, made it much easier for landlords and employers to access this information. She will also link the evolution of these systems to public discourse about crime and race, and explain how these systems may have contributed to racial inequality in both housing and employment, particularly before 2000, when there were few limits on the use of this information.