Does community service or probation still appear on your permanent record?

Community service and probation are types of criminal sentences. You can only be sentenced after you plead guilty to a crime or are found guilty by a judge or jury.

If you plead guilty on a deferred judgment or suspended sentence, you won't have a permanent record once you successfully complete the probation or community service. At that point, the law considers the guilty plea withdrawn as if it was never entered. There are, however, some circumstances in which you can still be penalized for it. For example, deferred sentences count as one point in computing your criminal history under federal sentencing guidelines.

If you plead guilty with no deferment of the sentence or conviction, or if you are found guilty following a trial, you'll have a permanent record.

If you pleaded guilty and don't know whether it was to a deferred sentence type of arrangement, you can go to the courthouse where you entered your guilty plea and ask to see your file. There will be a docket sheet or other listing of court minutes inside, containing the terms of your plea and sentence, including whether the judgment was deferred.

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