Ellenville NAACP President Maude Bruce and other members appeared at the September 12 Ellenville Village Board of Trustee meeting to ask the board to approve a resolution favoring the “Clean Slate Initiative.”

Clean Slate is a national campaign working with a bipartisan policy model that works to increase eligibility for people to clear arrest and conviction records, if they have remained “crime free” for a period of time. The model has been shown to transform people’s lives. Many people do not know that even after completion of a state prison sentence, incarcerated individuals must serve years of probation (three in New York State) and must try to find work despite having a criminal record, or in many cases, no criminal record, just a record of an arrest but no conviction.

Clean Slate was founded in 2019 as a national bipartisan organization advancing policies to automate and expand eligibility for rehabilitation. According to its website, Clean Slate has enabled 2,300,000 people to have at least one conviction or non-conviction cleared from their record. A full, 7,300,000 conviction and non-conviction cases have been cleared under Clean Slate.

To date seven states have passed Clean Slate legislation: Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Colorado, Michigan, Connecticut, Delaware and Utah. Active campaigns towards legislation are in progress in Texas, Missouri, Oregon, Illinois, Kentucky, West Virginia and New York.

The village board resolution will be sent to our local representatives at the state level to show grassroots support for the legislation. Bruce said the Clean Slate Initiative has lowered recidivism rates.

Clean Slate does not affect sex offenders. The village board approved the resolution unanimously.