After years of delays, state officials are now targeting fall 2025 to resume the automatic erasure of most old criminal records under Connecticut’s Clean Slate law.
The Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP), which is overseeing the law’s implementation, was approved for $10 million in state bond funding in April to put toward the project.
DESPP Commissioner Ronnell Higgins told lawmakers the funding is crucial for the department to deliver on its promise to erase the criminal records of the estimated 119,000 people in Connecticut who are believed to be eligible.
“Although I am troubled that we have not fully delivered, I can say that under my leadership and with this team, we have put the infrastructure in place to deliver on that promise,” he said.
Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont in 2021 signed the Clean Slate law, which requires the state to automatically erase most low-level convictions after a period of time. The measure was seen as a major victory in criminal justice reform.
But it was stymied by ongoing technical challenges. Higgins told lawmakers during a legislative hearing in February that implementing Clean Slate is “likely the most complex IT project that the state of Connecticut has ever taken on.”
The state has missed a series of targets to begin automatic erasures. Most recently, Lamont said in December 2023 that the process to erase the vast majority of eligible records would finish in January 2024. But officials pushed back that deadline, blaming data quality issues and aging computer systems.
Lamont’s office has not responded to requests for comment.
So far, only about 13,000 people have had their criminal records erased, according to DESPP spokesperson Rick Green.
Connecticut Public reviewed hundreds of email messages between Lamont’s staff and managers working on the project, which it obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Those emails, dated from November 2023 through February 2024, describe conversations that unfolded as the state geared up to fully implement the law, but failed to meet the governor’s stated timeline.
The emails show officials were on the precipice of getting erasures up and running, but discovered yet another category of data quality issues that needed to be fixed.
One of those email exchanges in November 2023 involved a group of high-ranking state officials, including Patrick Hulin, the governor’s deputy policy director; Jonathan Dach, a senior advisor to Lamont; and Marc Pelka, then the undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning at the Office of Policy and Management.;
“I am frustrated about where we are,” Hulin wrote in a Nov. 21, 2023 message, “but it remains better to fully test the system than to rush it to hit the date the Governor gave last winter.”
The state later hired quality assurance company iLab Consultants to help resolve ongoing technical problems.
Green said the company has been testing and validating Connecticut’s systems to make sure people whose records are eligible for erasure aren’t being missed.
“It involves this cumbersome process of verifying old, flawed, data from computer systems that are 60 years old in some cases,” he said.
DESPP spent $5.8 million on Clean Slate in 2024. The department is expected to spend another $10.8 million this year and through 2026, according to Green.
Advocates say patience is wearing thin for people who, despite completing their sentences, face hurdles in accessing secure housing, employment and education.
Matt McDermott, a member of Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut, which pushed for the law, said he’s skeptical Connecticut can hit its new target, given the number of deadlines that have already passed. The organization has met with state officials regularly to discuss Clean Slate’s progress.
“It’s extremely frustrating,” McDermott said. “We’ve heard other dates that didn’t prove true.”
Under Clean Slate, the state will erase eligible misdemeanors from people’s criminal records seven years after they complete their sentence, and eligible felony convictions after 10 years. Sex crimes and family violence crimes are not eligible for erasure.
McDermott said he wants to hold state officials accountable, and push them to implement the law as quickly as possible.
