Software company GCOM and the Connecticut Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection (DESPP) today announced that some 44,000 records of low-level cannabis possession convictions have been expunged as part of the state’s Clean Slate initiative.
The effort was executed as part of a long-term Computerized Criminal History (CCH) modernization project executed by GCOM on behalf of the DESPP.
The project was conducted under Connecticut’s existing contract with IDEMIA. Under this contract, IDEMIA provides integrated services and components that integrate with Connecticut’s master system.
With traditional record expungement processes, individuals may not realize they are eligible for erasure, or they may lack the time, knowledge and financial resources to initiate the process. Clean Slate is a bipartisan policy model that applies technology to automatically clear criminal records if a person remains crime-free for a specified number of years. Under this model, non-violent offenders have more opportunities to get a fair-paying job, purchase a home and contribute to their communities.
The challenge with implementing Clean Slate initiatives is that criminal history data is often entered in different formats and stored across different courthouses and law enforcement agencies. Many states don’t have the data sharing and technical infrastructure needed to verify that individuals meet the criteria for their records to be expunged.
DESPP partnered with GCOM through IDEMIA, which provides identity security and authentication services to governments and private companies, to develop a Clean Slate automated erasure system as part of its CCH modernization effort.
GCOM’s CCH Management System is purpose-built following service-oriented architecture (SOA) principles for maximum configuration flexibility. This flexibility allowed GCOM to rapidly adjust to Connecticut’s legislative developments and support the state’s Clean Slate initiative.
As of January 1, 2023, approximately 44,000 cannabis erasure transactions were successfully processed with no errors, and 3,659 expungement messages were submitted to the FBI via COLLECT with no issues. These cannabis erasures mark the first phase in Connecticut’s Clean Slate initiative. The Clean Slate automated erasure system is expected to be fully implemented during the second half of 2023.
