Become A Clean Slate New York Supporter
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We call on New York State to pass comprehensive Clean Slate legislation to automatically expunge conviction records and end the perpetual punishment they create. This legislation is crucial to ensure that the 2.3 million New Yorkers with conviction histories, who are disproportionately Black and brown, can fully and fairly participate in our shared communities and be a vibrant part of our state’s economy.
We all need access to jobs, housing, and education in order to live safely and securely, but people with convictions are repeatedly blocked from these life essentials, sometimes for life. These barriers reduce safety in our communities by keeping people who have served their sentences from successfully participating in our state’s social and economic systems.
New York can change this. We urge our state leaders to pass Clean Slate legislation that creates a mechanism for automatic expungement after a period of time for all New Yorkers who have successfully served their sentence and not incurred subsequent convictions.
This is a matter of simple fairness. New York State took an important first step by enacting limited petition-based sealing legislation in 2017, but we are not getting the results we need. Of the estimated 600,000 eligible to benefit from this law, fewer than 0.5% have had their records cleared, a rate consistent with other states’ petition-based record clearance laws. This critical relief should be available to everyone, not just the lucky few who can afford a lawyer to navigate the current law.
Automatic expungement is also a matter of common sense. Our economy loses $87 billion in gross domestic product every year from shutting workers with records out of the labor market. Meanwhile, research shows that a year after getting a record cleared, people are 11 percent more likely to have a job and are earning wages that are more than 20 percent higher than beforehand. As New York seeks to rebuild its ravaged economy in the wake of COVID-19, it must maximize opportunity for all. To ensure a sustainable and equitable New York both now and when the pandemic ends, we must bring in, not keep out, individuals with conviction records.
New York has a long history of enacting important reform to support full participation in the life and economy of this state. We must continue this tradition. We urge the Governor and Legislature to act decisively and quickly to pass this important legislation.