The ActionĬontact your state representative and ask that he or she support the Clean Slate bill (S.B.1019) as is. Clean slate would automatically expunge the criminal records of people who have returned to outside society and remained crime-free. The current petition-based system of having one’s record expunged can be expensive, it is cumbersome, and it is not transparent. This is driven, in part, by the fact that Black and Latinx people continue to receive harsher and longer sentences for the same crimes as white people. Nationally, one in three Black men have a felony conviction, compared to just 8% of the total population. Nationally, most employers ( 90%), landlords ( 80%), and colleges ( 60%) use background checks in the recruiting process.
Even if these arrests do not result in a conviction, they do produce a criminal record which can haunt these people for the rest of their lives, locking people out of opportunities to meet their basic human needs. By age 23, 50% of black men and 40% of white men will be arrested. According to the FBI, 30% of American adults have some sort of criminal record. The consequences of having a criminal record, especially a felony conviction, impacts the entire nation because of the way it drains the economy, and how it disproportionately targets communities of color.
This is the final push before it makes it to Governor Lamont’s desk and, hopefully, gets signed into law. Last week it successfully made it out of the Senate.
The Clean Slate criminal justice reform bill ( S.B.1019) that we support is coming up for a vote in the state House any day now.