Against New York’s Clean Slate Act
Jack Elbaum
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There is a real chance the Clean Slate Act will pass the New York state legislature this week and be signed into law by Gov. Kathy Hochul in the near future.
Different versions of Clean Slate laws have been passed in more than a dozen states so far, both liberal and conservative. On Monday, I explained the basic logic behind these laws: “If a person commits a low-level, non-violent crime, pays his debt to society through jail, parole, fines, or another method, and then does not get in any more trouble for anywhere from five to 10 years, depending on the state, then his criminal record will automatically be sealed.”
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This is smart policy because it allows people who made a mistake in the past, but who have since learned, to reintegrate into society. But the Clean Slate legislation about to be passed in New York is anything but smart.
Here’s why.
First, we can consider the unique extremism of New York’s iteration of the Clean Slate Act.
As I previously documented, there is a common thread among each of the Clean Slate laws passed so far: they all carve out major exceptions to which types of crimes can be sealed. These exceptions include most felonies, violent crimes, crimes of honesty like perjury, and sexual offenses. This is true from California to Utah to New Jersey. When it comes to Clean Slate laws, exceptions are the rule.
This is not so when it comes to New York’s proposed law. Originally, the plan was to allow any crime other than those which are sexual in nature to be sealed. This includes murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, and any other crime you could think of. In an amended version, though, in addition to sexual crimes, Class A Felonies like murder, arson, terrorism, and first-degree drug trafficking are ineligible to be sealed.
This is progress, but it is still extreme.
Under even this “moderate” version of New York’s law, the vast majority of violent crimes and felonies will be eligible to be sealed after only eight years (three years for misdemeanors). To make matters worse, most employers and landlords would not be permitted to ask about prior convictions.
This is a problem for a couple of reasons.
For starters, it is clearly in the interest of employers and landlords to know if the person they are about to hire, or sign a lease with, is a felon. That can become a liability quite quickly — and the costs of violent crime, in particular, are notably high. The New York Post explains, “A single DUI from 20 years ago may be irrelevant on an application to work at a convenience store. But what about 10 more-recent DUIs for an application to drive an elementary-school bus? Or five armed-robbery convictions for someone applying to work at a bank?”
Additionally, among the major deterrents to crime is that it will be on one’s permanent record. Reducing the cost of committing serious crimes will only incentivize more of it — particularly for young people who are more likely to be hyperbolic time discounters.
Second, there are practical issues with the legislation. Two high-ups in the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York point out that the law has nothing to say about out-of-state or federal offenses, writing, “Someone could have numerous pending offenses or even be on parole in New Jersey, Connecticut or any other state and still have offenses automatically sealed in New York.”
This is a recipe for disaster because it means not everyone whose records will be sealed will have actually been upstanding citizens for the prescribed amount of time. It also means there is an incentive for criminals who recently got out of jail to leave the state to commit a crime so that — as far as New York’s sealing system is concerned — they have stayed out of trouble.
Additionally, there is no limit to the number of crimes, including felonies, one can have sealed.
The more one reads into the specifics of this bill, the worse it seems to get. Advocacy articles for this bill, some disguised as news, are commonplace; but many of the substantive claims they make have now been debunked.
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The New York state legislature should recognize the imprudence of the Clean Slate Act and vote against it.
Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.