Will Formerly Incarcerated New Yorkers Get a Clean Slate?
It’s been hard for Lukee Forbes to escape his past. In 2016, he applied for a retail assistant clerk job at O’Reilly Auto Parts in Albany, and after impressing the hiring manager, he said, he was offered a $21-an-hour management position.
The person who interviewed him didn’t mind that he had a criminal record. Forbes told him that at 15 he had been tried as an adult and convicted of first-degree assault. He had just finished serving a seven-year sentence, so he quickly accepted the offer.
But things took a turn when his record was flagged during the background check. O’Reilly rescinded the offer, he said.
“I’m good enough to run a store, but then you won’t let me because of the actions that I committed at 15 years old?” said Forbes, now 29. “It really did hurt me. It broke me down for a moment.”
With more than 6.6 million criminal convictions from 1980 to 2021 affecting 2.2 million New Yorkers, Forbes’ experience is not unique. To make sure his criminal record won’t hinder his employment for years or even decades to come, Forbes is part of a growing movement calling for the automatic sealing of some New Yorkers’ criminal records.
The State Legislature passed the Clean Slate Act last June. Now waiting for Gov. Kathy Hochul’s signature, it would automatically seal felony convictions eight years after the offender’s release from incarceration. In the case of a misdemeanor, it would be three years. The legislation would not apply to people with more serious convictions such as murder, arson, major drug trafficking or sex offenses. It would not limit background checks for jobs in law enforcement either, or for positions directly dealing with children. Criminal records would still be accessible to police.
Supporters point at the financial benefits the Clean Slate Act would bring, arguing that it is an economic law rather than a public-safety one. In New York City alone, the city comptroller estimates that more than a half-million residents would be eligible for record-sealing . The comptroller’s office says this population would collectively earn $2.4 billion more per year.
African-American and Latino New Yorkers would be top beneficiaries of the legislation, as they make up 80% of New Yorkers with criminal convictions.
“This is a key step in terms of racial equality,” said Kate Wagner-Goldstein, director of New York Reentry Initiatives at Legal Action Center, a non-profit fighting against over-incarceration.“Being able to move forward without being held back by that conviction is crucial to address racial harm, mass incarceration and the disparate policing and prosecution of black and brown communities.”
Large corporations such as JPMorgan Chase and Con Edison also support a clean slate for some of New York’s formerly incarcerated.
“From the standpoint of both the humanitarian issues and the economic issues, the business community felt that the Clean Slate Act was important,” said Kathryn Wylde, president of Partnership for NYC, a group that includes many leaders of the city’s biggest corporations. Wylde says legislators worked to incorporate feedback from the business community into the bill.
The legislation has also attracted criticism. While some victims’ rights groups supported the bill, others vehemently opposed it.
“These people intentionally inflicted harm on another human being, and now we have to live with that, but they get to pretend that it never happened, and that’s really not fair,” said Jennifer Harrison, founder of Victims Rights NY, an advocacy organization supporting people affected by crime, in an interview.
Even though she understands the need for second chances in certain cases, Harrison believes the act circumvents the judicial system and that violent criminals could slip between the cracks. She thinks that current petition-based sealings, where formerly incarcerated can request that courts seal their records, should be expanded to help people access these programs.
Though data on the effects of Clean Slate laws in other states are slim, studies on the impacts of record sealings show great benefits.
A 2020 study by the University of Michigan found that “within one year, wages go up by over 22 percent” compared to pre-sealing trajectories for formerly incarcerated people who requested to get their records sealed. Additionally, data suggests that record sealings help lower recidivism rates.
Some Democrats opposed the legislation. Assembly Member Chris Eachus, whose district covers parts of Rockland and Orange counties, thinks there is not enough information about the impact of the law. “I try to react with logic,” he said. “I had hoped that more studies would come through.”
The Legislature has yet to send the bill to the governor. Hochul might still request changes to it before signing it into law. She could also veto it.
Approaching eight years since his release, Forbes would have his record sealed in 2024 if the act becomes law. Now a civil-rights campaign coordinator at the Hudson Catskill Housing Coalition, Forbes is determined to place a concrete end-date on the employment struggles he and millions of New Yorkers have experienced.
“We have our moment to make history or repeat the same mistakes that have led us to this system of oppression,” he said.
