The Akron Legal News

Legislators push bill to revise collateral sanctions process

TIFFANY L. PARKS
Special to the Legal News
Published: May 9, 2012

Reps. Ross McGregor and Tracy Maxwell Heard have introduced into the legislature a bill focused on eliminating barriers that non-violent, ex offenders sometimes face when seeking employment after incarceration.

House Bill 524 would revise Ohio’s collateral sanctions process.

Collateral sanctions are restrictions, disabilities or penalties beyond the direct punishment imposed on individuals at the time of sentencing.

“Over the past several months a bipartisan group, including the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections, the Ohio Department of Youth Services, the governor’s office, legislators, stakeholders and various interested parties, have attended forums across the state to discuss Ohio’s outdated criminal statutes and come up with common-sense public policy ideas that would be helpful to ex-offenders’ abilities to obtain jobs, to become tax payers, not tax burdens,” said McGregor, R-Springfield.

HB 524 has been pitched as the result of those forums.

McGregor said an estimated 2 million of Ohio’s 11.5 million citizens have felony or misdemeanor convictions.

“Felons, former felons and those with misdemeanor convictions often have families — dependent children, a marital partner, mothers and fathers,” he said. “Therefore, approximately one in every three of Ohio’s citizens is handicapped economically because employment opportunities are reduced for those with a criminal conviction due to collateral sanctions.”

McGregor said reducing such sanctions and increasing employment opportunities for those with criminal records, could lessen recidivism, social service system costs and potentially increase payroll tax revenues for local communities.

“This bill makes a number of reforms such as allowing ex-offenders to become licensed in making eye glasses or hearing aids,” he said, noting that under current state law a person who has been incarcerated is banned from becoming legally licensed to make eye glasses.

McGregor said that although that ban is in place, prisoners at the Ohio Reformatory for Women are trained in making eye wear.

“This bill also allows for ex-offenders to have the ability to become licensed in other fields including construction and cosmetology,” he said.

HB 524 would establish a process for those who are subject to collateral sanctions to obtain an order of limited relief from a court.

The bill also seeks to protect employers who would hire a formerly incarcerated person from being held liable for negligent hiring, exclude juvenile proceedings and adjudications from criminal records checks and provide for the destruction of a pardoned individual’s criminal records.

HB 524 would expand eligibility for the sealing of records to allow first-time misdemeanor and felony convictions charged in separate indictments to each have one opportunity for sealing, rather than a single opportunity for either a misdemeanor or a felony.

The proposal would give judges the discretion to seal non-support convictions if the offender is current in his or her child support obligations.

In addition, the measure has been crafted to address some of the driver’s license inaccuracies that have led to license suspensions and jail time for failure to pay non-moving violations.

Heard, D-Columbus, said she has been encouraged by the bipartisan backing of the proposed legislation.

“I believe in re-entry. I believe in creating an environment where our returning citizens can be provided the necessary support they need from the moment they engage the system to the point they exit,” she said.

“We are obligated to serve justice and protect our citizens, but we also have an obligation to even our wayward citizens.”

Heard said that if the collective group behind HB 524 had failed to attempt to remove obstacles to re-entry for returning citizens, “we would be hypocritical in our stated expectation for them to become reintegrated, productive, employed, taxpaying citizens.”

“The common theme throughout this bill is that these provisions would only affect non-violent and non-sexual related crimes,” she said.

“These provisions and the removal of collateral sanctions also would not apply when a direct nexus exists between the offense and the employment opportunity. For example, this bill would not eliminate barriers to employment for someone convicted of check fraud, who then applies for a job at a bank.”

Heard said she is pleased to jointly sponsor HB 524 with McGregor.

“Without recognizing and addressing these sanctions, we would in short order find ourselves again with an overpopulated prison system with a revolving door,” she said.

McGregor said enacting the measures in HB 524 is “long overdue.”

“We have spent a great deal of time collaborating to draft this bill, but realize this is just a start to the continuation of the reform process,” he said. “We recognize there are other related issues, but feel this bill is an achievable start, as we have already built a consensus on these issues.”

HB 524 is co-sponsored by Reps. Sandra Williams, D-Cleveland, Barbara Sears, R-Maumee, Nancy Garland, D-New Albany, Denise Driehaus, D-Cincinnati, Andrew Brenner, R-Powell, Teresa Fedor, D-Toledo, Kenny Yuko, D-Richmond Heights, Roland Winburn, D-Dayton, Nickie Antonio, D-Lakewood, Denise Phillips, D-Athens, and Tom Letson, D-Warren.

The bill has yet to be scheduled for a third hearing.

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