Judiciary Committee
March 10, 2021
Presented By: Kathleen Callahan, MSW
Dear Honorable Chairpersons Winfield and Stafstrom, Ranking Members Kissel and Fishbein, Vice Chairs Kasser and Blumenthal, and all other Members of the Judiciary Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly:
My name is Kathleen Callahan, a resident of Stratford, and the Community Programming and Development Lead at the Connecticut Women’s Consortium in Hamden. I am also the chair of the National Association of Social Workers Connecticut Chapter’s Education and Legislative Action Network (NASW/CT ELAN). I am testifying on behalf of the c
Chapter which represents over 2,300 members. We call upon the Judiciary Committee to support both SB-1019, henceforth referred to as Clean Slate and SB-978, henceforth referred to as Young Adult Parole Opportunities.
The legislative agenda of NASW/CT emphasizes advancing racial, economic, and social justice and the need for policing, justice, and prison reform by supporting legislation that specifically promotes clean slate laws. The Center for American Progress describes clean slate as policy that automatically clears criminal records and unlocks the opportunities individuals have earned but cannot access.[1] Many who are eligible for expungement do not have the resources to navigate a complex system, resulting in an inequitable “second chance gap” that can be remedied by a technological solution.
The Clean Slate bill will streamline a process for all eligible individuals, alleviating multiple burdens of the current system. As Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut has persuasively advocated, there are positive outcomes for all: restoring access to jobs, housing, and education and decreasing the risk of recidivism help both individuals and their families and promote stronger, safer, more resilient communities. Economically, there will be reductions in both court processing and incarceration costs and a workforce expansion to counter the losses of unavailable employees, currently considered to diminish Connecticut’s annual economic activity by $859 to $958 million.[2] The impact of COVID-19 – court closures and backlogs – makes passage of this bill an important part of our state’s recovery.
In addition to economic justice, NASW/CT supports this as a racial justice issue. According to the Smart Justice initiative of the ACLU of Connecticut, our state is among the worst in the nation for disproportionately incarcerating people of color. Only five states are worse than Connecticut for Black adults and only seven for Latino adults. [3] As the numbers of those imprisoned in our state decrease, these racial disparities have remained consistent.
It is time for Connecticut to follow the lead of Pennsylvania, the first state to enact a clean slate law, and join the momentum of Utah, North Carolina, California, Michigan, Kentucky, and others. NASW/CT believes a criminal conviction should not sentence an individual to a lifetime of exclusion and blocked opportunities. Enacting the Clean Slate bill will be a part of repairing past wrongs and deliver long overdue justice and equity to our neighbors.
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Regarding SB-978: Young Adult Parole Opportunities, NASW/CT supports legislation that advances recent research into brain development and the consideration of a young adult stage between adolescence and adulthood. This bill extends the 2015 parole opportunities granted to eligible individuals from under 18 years of age to under 25. Following their focus on adolescence, researchers have recently created a new field of work around “emerging adulthood” and the understanding that full brain maturity, including self-regulation and higher-order cognition, is not complete until at least the mid-20s.[4]
In a general comparison with adults, a 2020 memo from the Juvenile Sentencing Project at Quinnipiac University School of Law[5] reports young adults underestimate risk, have lower impulse control, cannot conceptualize future consequences, and struggle to moderate social and emotional responses; and emerging adulthood is a predominant time for brain neuroplasticity, an indicator for potential shifts in behavior. Compared to adults, they are less responsible for actions and more capable of change. This is supported by a report about young adult males prepared for the Massachusetts Department of Correction in late 2018, which added that while this population is flexible and capable of change, opportunities for rehabilitation are not found in an adult correctional facility.[6]
NASW/CT believes promoting opportunity for young adults should be a priority and must include the research into the intersection of trauma and justice-involvement. We know that childhood exposure to traumatic events and toxic stress disrupts brain development. We also know that both individual and environmental adversity – such as family behavioral health issues, parental incarceration, poverty, foster care involvement, racism, and food and home security – delay psychosocial maturity and are more prevalent in the history of justice-involved young adults.
The stated purpose of SB-978 is “to incentivize rehabilitation among incarcerated individuals and provide a second chance for those who were convicted and sentenced before twenty-five years of age.” Legislatures and courts across the country have started to respond to the research, enacting policies and laws that treat young adults more like juveniles than adults. Connecticut should continue its Second Chance work and follow them, and the science, toward a more just, restorative, humane system where young adults can emerge as full and productive participants in their communities.
In closing, NASW-CT urges the committee to vote in favor of both SB-1019, Clean Slate, and SB-978, Young Adult Parole Opportunities.
[1] Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (2018). MIT Young Adult Development Project. Retrieved from https://hr.mit.edu/static/worklife/youngadult/.
[2] Juvenile Sentencing Project. (2020, January). Consideration of Youth for Young Adults. Quinnipiac University School of Law. Retrieved from https://juvenilesentencingproject.org/wpcontent/uploads/model_reforms_consideration_of_youth_for_young_adults.pdf.
[3] McDonald, S. M. (2018, November). The Influence of Brain Development Research on the Response to Young Adult Males 18 – 24 Years of Age in the Criminal Justice System. Massachusetts Department of Correction, Office of Strategic Planning and Research, Division of Research and Planning. Retrieved from https://www.mass.gov/doc/the-influence-of-brain-development-research-on-the-response-to-young-adult-males/download
[4] Clean Slate Toolkit. (2018, November). Clean Slate Toolkit. Center for American Progress. Retrieved from https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/poverty/reports/2018/11/15/460907/clean-slate-toolkit/.
[5] Congregations Organized for a New Connecticut. Clean Slate. Retrieved from http://www.weconect.org/clean-slate-2/.
[6] ACLU of Connecticut. (2021). Smart Justice. Retrieved from https://www.acluct.org/en/issues/smart-justice.
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