Miles Gresham of Neighbor-to-Neighbor joined others from Clean Slate Massachusetts to urge the City Council to pass a resolution in support of the Clean Slate legislation currently at the state level. The council unanimously passed the resolution after some discussion.
Photo credit: Focus Springfield
SPRINGFIELD — In the state of Massachusetts, criminal offender record information can be sealed three years after a misdemeanor and seven years after a felony. However, only 10% of the 672,000 Massachusetts residents eligible to seal their records have done so.
Why such a low percentage? Advocates say it is for a myriad of reasons.
“One, some people don’t know they’re eligible, they don’t know … that they can seal,” said Andrea Freeman, the policy director for Public Health Institute of Western Mass. “Others, they find out the petition process is too complex, it’s costly, they can’t find an attorney, they don’t know that there might be a pro bono attorney, or they find [the sealing process] re-traumatizing.”
Freeman and others from a broad coalition called Clean Slate Massachusetts joined forces with the Springfield City Council on May 12 to express support for two pieces of legislation that automates the process for CORI records sealing and streamlines the process for those looking to clear their name.
Filed by state Sen. Cindy Friedman and state Reps. Mary Keefe, and Andres Vargas, “An Act requiring clean slate automated sealing” would automate the sealing process for people already eligible, including the more than half a million currently in line.
Meanwhile, a companion bill filed by state Sen. Adam Gomez and state Rep. Brandy Fluker-Reid titled “An Act to remove collateral consequences and protect the presumption of innocence” would ensure immediate sealing of cases that end in dismissal or other non-conviction charges.
Passage of these bills would not only expedite a process that currently requires a hearing in front of a judge, advocates say it would also allow people to move on with their lives without having to bear the burden that an unsealed record carries.
“Automating the process reduces strain on individuals as well as the courts,” Freeman said. “So more importantly, it lets people move on sooner to stable work, better housing and healthier lives.”
On May 12, the council approved a resolution urging the state to pass the two pieces of legislation, which were filed this session and recently assigned to the state’s Joint Committee on the Judiciary.
“We know that black and Latino individuals have been and are disproportionately arrested, prosecuted, convicted and incarcerated,” said At-Large City Councilor Tracye Whitfield, the initial sponsor of the bill. “And the best way to fix and address this problem is to automatically seal records for nonviolent misdemeanors and low-level offenses.”
According to Miles Gresham, the policy director for Neighbor-to-Neighbor Massachusetts Education Fund, people with unsealed records are 50% less likely to earn the same income as their peers and are more likely to face scrutiny in the public housing realm.
Speaking in front of the council, Gresham said around 90% of landlords complete some kind of criminal background check, and public housing agencies are currently allowed to disqualify entire families if a single adult has a criminal background.
The passage of the two bills would break some of those barriers and diminish the likelihood of people re-offending, Gresham argued.
“People who come out of prison and cannot find a home and cannot find a job are much more likely to re-offend,” Gresham said. “And so, forcing them to carry a criminal record that they should be able to seal doesn’t only punish them, it punishes the communities that they are sent back to by making them less safe.”
The Clean Slate Massachusetts coalition features a plethora of community organizations and impacted individuals across the state, including Neighbor-to-Neighbor, Public Health Institute of Western Mass. and Al Hubert of Live Well Springfield.
The coalition believes that the council’s approval of a resolution sends a strong message to the state. Pauline Quirion, an attorney from Greater Boston Legal Services, said Massachusetts would join 12 other states in the nation who have passed clean slate legislation, including Pennsylvania, which Quirion said has sealed 34 million records since passing their own bill in 2008.
“If you can get this passed in some of these very conservative locations, you know it’s a good idea,” Quirion said. “It’s actually been a source of bipartisan pride for the states that have passed clean slate.”
Quirion is a part of the first legal aid program in the state to start a criminal record sealing program, which mainly assists neighborhoods where there is large scale unemployment and incarceration.
She spoke in full support of the clean slate legislation and mentioned how the state currently has a backlog of people waiting for their records to be sealed that goes as far back as February. When people must wait many months to seal, they may lose that dream job or apartment, Quirion says.
“There’s a study that shows … if there’s more criminal record sealing, wages go up and people get more jobs,” Quirion said.
The council unanimously approved the resolution and by the end of the discussion, everyone was on board as a sponsor.
“I think if you’ve served your time, I don’t think you should have to suffer a lifetime of being penalized by that and holding you back from economic opportunities,” said At-Large City Councilor Jose Delgado.
In a statement to Reminder Publishing, Gomez was appreciative of the council’s resolution, stating that the body recognizes “how consequential clean slate policy can be for the residents in Springfield and across Massachusetts.”
“We all deserve a fair shot at a future,” Gomez said. “I’m proud to sponsor legislation along with my colleague and friend Rep. Fluker-Reid that would result in the immediate sealing of favorably ending offenses or other non-convictions, ensuring that people who were incarcerated have the opportunity to succeed.”
