State must repeal incarceration liens

While advocating for and winning the passage of Clean Slate legislation over the past several years, the back of our T-shirts read “because a criminal record should not be a lifetime sentence.” Clean Slate will automatically expunge certain criminal records for people who have returned from prison and remained crime free for a significant period of time.

This belief — that people who have served their time should not continue to be punished and suffer as second-class citizens when it comes to jobs, housing, and so much more — is rooted in our religious traditions’ teachings on forgiveness and redemption. Our commitment to combating the cruel injustices of the War on Drugs and mass incarceration is also rooted in the countless stories of people being stymied by their criminal record while honorably trying to rebuild their lives.

Throughout the Clean Slate campaign, we heard dozens of stories about another system that stymies formerly incarcerated people trying to rebuild their lives: incarceration liens. This system was created entirely by our state government, and it is past time to repeal it. Connecticut is just one of two states in the U.S. that still has such a system in place. House Bill 5390, pending now at the Capitol, would repeal the state’s prison debt statutes.

The current incarceration lien, or pay-tostay-law (C.G.S. 18-85), allows the state to take up to 50 percent of inheritances and lawsuit proceeds received by people who have been formerly incarcerated. In addition, when a formerly incarcerated person dies, the state can, in certain cases, take their entire estate. State liens haunt formerly incarcerated people for up to 20 years after their release from prison.

This policy punishes Connecticut residents, both financially and emotionally, decades after they have served their time and reentered society. The current law perpetuates intergenerational poverty and makes building generational wealth nearly impossible. Many formerly incarcerated individuals are unable to pass along inheritances, estates or lawsuit proceeds to their children, stagnating economic mobility. Further, because Black and Latino residents are disproportionately impacted by mass incarceration — comprising more than 71 percent of Connecticut’s prison population — this crippling of intergenerational wealth disproportionately affects families of color. Incarceration liens cruelly impede individuals’ ability to successfully rebuild their lives.

The state collects, at most, $6 million per year in incarceration liens. This is, in effect, a huge tax on poor and working poor people, families and communities. With the state now anticipating $4 billion in budget surpluses, it is time to repeal this punitive, regressive system completely before this legislative session ends on May 4. Our families, communities and state will be safer, stronger and better as a result.