Legislature should pass Clean Slate plan

After a year that saw a rise in violent crimes, including murder and shootings, after decades of declines, it’s natural to ask what the public appetite would be for measures that appear to be forgiving of criminals. So it’s worthwhile to point out what the Clean Slate proposal, which is again before the state Legislature after being tabled due to the pandemic a year ago, would not do.

It would not shorten anyone’s sentence. It would not let offenders out of prison early or get them out of serving altogether. It would not reduce penalties for breaking the law.

What it might do is help reduce crime. If people who have served their sentences and stayed out of trouble after returning to society are better able to integrate into their communities with available jobs and steady housing, they are much less likely to revert to behavior that got them in trouble in the first place. That’s the point of Clean Slate.

It would not apply to violent felonies, such as murder. The law would automatically expunge the records of ex-offenders a certain number of years after completing a sentence for a misdemeanor and longer after a nonviolent felony, provided there is no trouble in the interim.

There is already a process to allow records to be expunged, but it’s known to be opaque and difficult to navigate. The result is people who have served their time and would like to reintegrate into society but are held back by the stigma of a criminal record that can prevent them from acquiring housing and a job, which have been shown to be key to stability.

In any given year, about 5,000 people in Connecticut will return to society from prison, and nearly all of them will face restrictions. The economic loss from fewer people able to work is substantial, and proponents make a strong case that the state should do more to get people back in the workforce who are able to contribute.

At one point, long in the past, the prison system was meant to be redemptive. Today, the rehabilitative angle to incarceration has all but disappeared, and instead a prison sentence can follow a person around for years, long after their time behind bars is over. If a person is unable to get a student loan, or can’t secure a license for a particular occupation all because of a sentence that is long in the past, it’s as if that punishment has never ended.

There are freedom of information concerns about any law that removes data from the public record, but it’s not as though the news of someone’s conviction disappears. And it’s true that contemporaneous news accounts, which live forever on websites, can be just as damaging to a person’s prospects as an official court document.

But Clean Slate offers at least a chance at redemption. It lets people get beyond the initial rejection that so often greets people who have a criminal record. It gives them a chance at starting over.

If reducing crime is the goal, then Clean Slate is more important than ever. The Legislature has a crowded docket, but should make room for this measure.

The result is people who have served their time and would like to reintegrate into society but are held back by the stigma of a criminal record.