Senate Bill 6144 (S-3845.1) amends several statutes, repeals two sections, and creates procedural changes. It amends RCW 9.94.049 to define “correctional institution” to include state prisons, county and local jails, juvenile detention centers, and other facilities operated by the Department of Corrections, the Department of Children, Youth, and Families, or local governments used primarily for punishment, correction, or rehabilitation; it separately defines “state correctional institution” as state facilities under the secretary of corrections used solely for confinement of convicted felons. The bill repeals RCW 9.94A.646 and RCW 13.40.043. The bill changes vacatur procedures in RCW 9.94A.640. It allows an offender discharged under RCW 9.94A.637 to apply to the sentencing court to vacate a conviction and, if the statutory tests in subsection (2) are met, authorizes the court to withdraw a plea or set aside a verdict and dismiss the information or indictment. Subsection (2) lists disqualifying circumstances (for example, pending charges; specified violent or person crimes except certain exceptions; recent new convictions within specified time periods; time-based restrictions for class B and C felonies; certain vehicular felonies under RCW 46.61.502 and 46.61.504). Subsection (3) permits victims of sex trafficking, prostitution, commercial sexual abuse of a minor, sexual assault, or domestic violence to apply — or to have a prosecutor apply on their behalf in an administrative role — to vacate class B or C felony convictions under RCW 9.94A.648, with vacatur subject to the limits in subsection (4). Subsection (4) specifies legal effects of vacatur: a vacated conviction is not included in criminal history for sentencing, releases the person from collateral penalties and disabilities, allows the person to truthfully state they have not been convicted for employment questions, restricts dissemination by the state patrol and local law enforcement except to other criminal justice agencies, and clarifies that vacatur does not prevent using the prior conviction in a later prosecution or affect firearm restoration under RCW 9.41.040. It also states that convictions vacated on or after July 28, 2019 may still qualify as prior convictions for charging recidivist offenses occurring on or after that date and may be used to establish an ongoing pattern of abuse under RCW 9.94A.535. The bill amends RCW 13.40.044 to require the (unnamed) department to adopt rules treating prison riot behavior described in RCW 9.94.010(1) as an infraction and, by August 1, 2025, to respond to such behavior in an institution using the internal behavioral management infraction system and to refer the incident to law enforcement. The text does not explicitly identify which department is responsible in RCW 13.40.044, and the full texts of the repealed sections and some referenced statutes are not included here, so the complete practical effect cannot be determined from these extracts alone.

If enacted, more people will be able to ask a court to clear certain convictions: offenders discharged under the referenced statute can seek vacatur, and victims of sex trafficking, prostitution, sexual assault, commercial sexual abuse of a minor, or domestic violence can have class B or C felony convictions vacated or have a prosecutor apply for them. A successful vacatur will likely improve job prospects and remove many collateral penalties because the conviction won’t count in criminal-history checks for sentencing or show up for most public dissemination, but those vacated convictions can still be used as priors for some recidivist charges, in later prosecutions, and do not automatically restore firearm rights. State agencies and courts will see operational changes and likely extra workload: sentencing courts must process vacatur petitions, prosecutors may handle administrative vacatur applications, and the state patrol and local law enforcement must restrict sharing of vacated records to criminal-justice agencies only. Corrections and juvenile confinement authorities (department of corrections, department of children, youth, and families, and local jails/detention centers) must treat prison-rio t behavior as an internal infraction and by August 1, 2025 use their internal behavioral management system and refer incidents to law enforcement, which will require new rules, procedures, and training. The bill also repeals two statutes related to resentencing and juvenile relief, but the exact practical impact of those repeals is unclear here because the removed texts and which specific "department" must adopt rules are not identified in the provided facts.