by MAYA MCFADDEN The new haven independent
Helen Caraballo is looking forward to attending nursing school while raising her five children and bouncing back from an otherwise “rough year” — with the knowledge that she’ll no longer have to keep looking backward at a decade-old, low-level felony conviction, which will soon be erased.
Caraballo, 35, was one of a a handful of speakers at a Monday press conference in Newhallville to celebrate the full, if delayed, implementation of the state’s Clean Slate law.
That bill, signed by Gov. Ned Lamont in 2021, will automatically erase 178,499 low-level felony and misdemeanor convictions for more than 80,000 Connecticut residents by January.
The law is aimed at bringing new beginnings to residents who face extreme difficulty getting housing, jobs, and access to higher education as a result of having criminal records, regardless of how old those convictions are.
This marks the second wave of cleared criminal records under the Clean Slate bill, which also saw 43,754 low-level cannabis possession convictions erased this past January.
Gov. Ned Lamont.
Gov. Ned Lamont stopped by Newhallville’s Community Baptist Church on Shelton Avenue Monday to join Caraballo and CONECT, a collective of faith leaders focused on social justice issues, to announce the coming erasure of thousands upon thousands of old convictions.
Leaders at the forefront of Monday’s presser included Community Baptist Church Rev. Philippe Andal, Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut Chair Rodney Moore, civil rights attorney Philip Kent, New Haven State Sen. Gary Winfield, American Civil Liberties Union of Connecticut Senior Policy Organizer Anderson Curtis, Clean Slate Initiative Vice President Jason Cooper, Mayor Justin Elicker, Bridgeport State Rep. Steven Stafstrom, and Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz.
Leaders declared the implementation of the law as a step toward justice, second chances, and redemption for formerly incarcerated Connecticut residents.
Kent reported that Connecticut was the fourth state to adopt a clean slate law. Now a total of 12 states have similar laws in place.
State Sen. Gary Winfield.
Lamont’s office sent out an email press release on Monday explaining and celebrating the bill’s full implementation. That press release read in part: “The Clean Slate Law was adopted to remove barriers to jobs, education, and housing that people who have been convicted of low-level offenses have often faced, provided that they have completed their sentences and have remained crime-free for a specified number of years. The goal is to empower people to advance their careers, obtain stable housing, and experience the successful second chance they’ve earned.”
The presser took place a year after many of these same local and statewide leaders, minus the governor, gathered in this same Newhallville church to criticize the governor for the delayed implementation of the law. On Monday, speakers clarified that the delay was due to getting state agencies along with criminal justice system stakeholders to perform significant computer-related upgrades that allowed for the identification and automatic erasure of eligible convictions.
Winfield repeated throughout Monday’s conference: “Thank God we’re going to implement this.”
The majority of cleared records are expected to be complete by the end of January 2024.
Lamont’s press release stated that record erasure “does not mean deletion or destruction; instead, erasure causes a record to be flagged for nondisclosure to anyone other than the clerk holding the records.”
“There is a lot of work to do which includes what we do before we ever get here,” Winfield said on Monday.
Lamont said we all deserve a second chances, and that he aims to make Connecticut a “first chance state.”
Helen Caraballo.
Caraballo, who spoke at Monday’s presser, is one New Havener who will benefit from the Clean Slate bill’s full implementation.
She is looking to move up from her current certified nursing assistant (CNA) work but must go to nursing school to do so. This has been a difficult task to pursue as she has been rebuilding her life and has struggled to get work, in part because of a low-level drug conspiracy felony conviction on her record from 12 years ago.
She described the erasure law as the best Christmas gift she could ask for.
Lamont told Caraballo Monday that “this is not a Christmas present but something you have earned.”
As a result of her decade-old conviction Caraballo got a suspended prison sentence. She said that “since then, I have been serving another sentence — not the one that the judge imposed, but one that has been very real with employers, landlords, schools and professions.”
Bysiewicz reported Monday that Connecticut has 100,000 open job positions and “we have this incredible opportunity to fill those jobs with determined, tenacious people who want to show that they’ve learned from their mistakes, that they are ready to be productive citizens and help their families but also help our state.”
Caraballo concluded that “I am no longer who I was 12 years ago.”
Kenneth Bruce.
Also in attendance Monday was New Haven native Kenneth Bruce, 53, who has a criminal record from 20 years ago. Bruce said because of this he’s spent the past two decades being denied jobs and housing. He said he’s spent more than 20 years submitting applications to Yale and has never once gotten an interview.
Bruce said he now works three jobs as a licensed chef.
While he shared he has no plans to petition to get his record erased, he is working around the city to encourage other formerly incarcerated New Haveners to see if they are eligible to.
He emphasized that reentry programming has failed him and many others in the city and so he’s taken it upon himself to help others pave their way to new beginnings.
See below for Lamont’s press release in full, which details exactly who is eligible to have their criminal records erased under this law