Hartford Business Journal

HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | JANUARY 23, 2023 17 State Sen. Gary Winfield (D-New Haven) speaks at the Greater Hartford Reentry Welcome Center earlier this month during a press conference about Connecticut's Clean Slate law. HBJ PHOTO | SKYLER FRAZER Second Chances CT's new Clean Slate law could boost workforce, but employers must take note By Skyler Frazer sfrazer@hartfordbusiness.com A lmost 44,000 residents had their low-level drug convic- tions erased at the beginning of the year as part of Connecticut's new Clean Slate law, knocking down one barrier to entry for those hoping to reenter the workforce and move on from past legal issues. With parts of Connecticut's Clean Slate law going into effect Jan. 1, there are several changes employers must keep an eye on to ensure they don't run afoul of the new rules as they go through the hiring process. With almost 100,000 open jobs in the state, employment experts said the law could strengthen Connecti- cut's workforce at a time when there are more jobs available than people who can fill them. Earlier this month, Gov. Ned Lamont and other state officials met at the Greater Hartford Reentry Welcome Center, run by reentry nonprofit Community Partners in Action, to speak about the new state law's potential impact. "Hope and opportunity translate into jobs and a career," Lamont said. "We need you, we need everybody. We need 40,000-plus people able to get back into the workforce, able to keep our economy growing." The law On Jan. 1, 43,754 low-level cannabis possession convic- tions were erased as part of the launch of the state's automated erasure system. Potentially hundreds of thou- sands of more record erasures through the Clean Slate law are expected to begin in the second half of 2023, when the program is fully implemented. At the start of the year, convictions between 2000 and September 30, 2015, for possession of under 4 ounces of cannabis, were automati- cally erased. Other cannabis-related convictions could also be erased pending a petition submission to the state Superior Court. The full extent of the law makes those with misdemeanor records eligible for conviction erasure after seven years; low-level felony records will be eligible for erasure after 10 years, with some exceptions. At the recent Greater Hartford Reentry Welcome Center event, Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin called the law "ground- breaking legislation that provided a clean slate for so many people in our city and around our state who had made mistakes, but then made a change and are just trying to live strong, productive lives in our community." Marc Pelka, an undersecretary in the state's Office of Policy and Management's Criminal Justice Policy and Planning Division, said that 35% of the people who had automatic erasures on Jan. 1, were Black. Eleven percent of erased convictions came from Hartford, and another 8% were from New Haven. Clean Slate's full rollout has been delayed until later in the year. Pelka said the state is investing millions of dollars into upgrading informa- tion technology infrastructure to allow criminal justice agencies to send and receive data about future automatic erasures. State Sen. Gary Winfield (D-New Haven) has been one of the Clean Slate law's most public advocates for the past several years. While he's expressed disappointment that the full rollout has been delayed, he said the law represents progress toward looking at past offenders in a different light. He said he's "completely committed" to getting the full law rolled out in 2023. Meantime, Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said the law will serve as a potential boost to the workforce. "This is really great news for employers, because there are 100,000 open jobs and not enough people to take those jobs," Bysiewicz said about the law. "It's so important that as people come out of our corrections system that they have the opportunities to make use of job training programs." Employer impact Daniel A. Schwartz, an employ- ment attorney and partner at Hartford law firm Shipman & Goodwin, said these conviction erasures could open up new doors for people looking for jobs. "It's going to restrict employers from being able to use past convictions in certain instances and give employees the opportunity to find work that they might otherwise have been excluded from," Schwartz said. Employers should take several steps in the wake of the Clean Slate law, including updating their employ- ment application. Schwartz said that if an application asks any question concerning criminal history, the A boost to the job market As Connecticut's Clean Slate law goes into effect, in-state employers remain desperate for new hires. Here's a breakdown of the number of available jobs Connecticut employers reported throughout last year. MONTH (2022) NO. OF OPEN JOBS January 108,000 February 112,000 March 115,000 April 111,000 May 119,000 June 113,000 July 115,000 August 111,000 September 110,000 October 97,000 Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Daniel A. Schwartz Gary Winfield Luke Bronin

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