Clean Slate NY Campaign, including Zaki Smith, Pen Op-Ed – Next100
Commentary   Criminal Justice

Clean Slate NY Campaign, including Zaki Smith, Pen Op-Ed

Next100 policy entrepreneur Zaki Smith and New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie outline the pressing need for automatic criminal record expungement in New York State, including sharing Zaki’s personal experience. […]

Next100 policy entrepreneur Zaki Smith and New York State Senator Zellnor Myrie outline the pressing need for automatic criminal record expungement in New York State, including sharing Zaki’s personal experience. Zaki and Senator Myrie are members of the newly-announced Clean Slate NY coalition for reform in Albany.

“For all these reasons and more, the Clean Slate New York campaign — involving people with lived experience, advocates and grassroots groups — together with a growing number of legislators, are pressing for a law creating automatic criminal records expungement. This law would build on principles and processes of automatic expungement provisions in the marijuana decriminalization bill we passed last session, and would bring relief for hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who face enduring effects of encounters with punishment.”

Read the full New York Daily News op-ed here.

About the Author

Portrait of Michael Zaki Smith, he has closely cut hair, and a short beard.
Michael “Zaki” Smith Criminal Justice

Michael “Zaki” Smith is an entrepreneur and activist with more than fifteen years of experience in youth empowerment and social justice. At Next100, his work focuses on dismantling the collateral consequences of incarceration, policies that have impacted him personally as a formerly incarcerated individual.

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