New York is fighting for the Clean Slate Act to be passed into law.
For New Yorkers, the bill would automatically clear a person’s conviction record once they’re eligible and would remove major barriers to employment, housing and education.
The global CEO of Clean Slate NY, Ashish Prashar, was formerly incarcerated and is advocating for those impacted by the criminal legal system and raising awareness about the Clean Slate Act. One in three Americans have a criminal record and have a difficult time finding housing, education and employment. Out of 70 million people across the United States with a conviction, 2.3 million of those impacted are in New York alone.
Zaki Smith is a Clean Slate coalition leader released from prison 18 years ago. He has been denied access to education, housing, and employment.
They are both working ot get the bill passed.
The bill fell out of the state budget talks in New York, but to date, five states have approved the Clean Slate Act—Pennsylvania, Utah, Michigan, Connecticut and Delaware. More states are considering the legislation themselves.
Smith and Prashar helped get a mural called “Mark the Days” up in Brooklyn to highlight their cause.
The two want to call attention to the “hidden life sentences” that incarcerated people face long after they’ve been released from prison so they created an art piece that uses marks to represent days and time.
The marks illustrate the lifetime of injustice and the formerly incarcerated often suffer due to conviction records. The art also brings the spirit of prison wall inscriptions to the outside world, in an attempt to show that life on the outside after release from jail or prison is often even more punishing and restricting than life on the inside.
