The 2024 legislative session ended with the expansion of Connecticut’s paid sick days mandate, the passage of a $370 million budget stabilization plan and reforms inspired by an absentee ballot scandal in the state’s most populous city — but not much related to major criminal justice reform. 

Lawmakers entered the year warning that the 13-week session, the state’s budgetary restraints and a looming election would pose challenges for significant action on criminal justice and other areas dealing with the state’s most vulnerable populations. And while the session, which concluded on May 8, saw the passage of minor and technical adjustments to criminal justice policy, bigger changes — even those with bipartisan agreement — did not occur. 

That includes a bill responding to growing anecdotes of street takeovers, legislation outlining a new process for appointing the state’s first independent correctional ombudsperson and the governor’s response to the State Police ticketing scandal. 

“Particularly in the short legislative session, people frequently come in with grandiose ideas, and given the calendar, and given the budgetary constraints and certainly, this year, the lack of passing a full-fledged budget, really leads to a number of items sort of left unfinished,” said Rep. Steven Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, co-chair of the Judiciary Committee. 

“Clearly, there was a lot more stuff that we could have and probably should have gotten done that we didn’t get done,” said Sen. Gary Winfield, D-New Haven, the other co-chair of the delegation overseeing everything from courts and prisons to civil penalties and criminal law. 

Lawmakers and advocates have already started preparing for next year’s longer session, running from January to June, with hopes of accomplishing more. Prior to that, however, is the 2024 general election, which could change the makeup of the General Assembly and the people holding leadership titles. 

“There’s folks inside this building who have the power to make decisions and do the things they were elected by the people to do, but many of them aren’t, and they need to hear from us,” Gus Marks-Hamilton, a campaign manager with the ACLU of Connecticut, said outside of the state Capitol last week. “We need to keep in mind the people who aren’t here, the people who lack the freedom to be able to come to the Capitol and talk with the people who are supposed to be representing them.”

Here’s a look at some of the criminal justice-related bills that passed and others that did not.

Bills that passed 

Body cameras: Senate Bill 5381 requires the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection and the Police Officer Standards and Training Council to update their guidelines on body-worn camera equipment to outline under which circumstances an officer shall not stop recording. 

Under current policy, police are required to activate their body-worn camera equipment during any interactions with the public and can deactivate if they feel continuing to record could significantly interfere with an investigation.

Coerced debt: Senate Bill 123 seeks to provide recourse to victims of “coerced debt,” or debt that occurred in an individual’s name as a result of duress, intimidation or threat of force, by establishing a process allowing them to seek relief. 

That includes requiring collection entities to initiate a thorough review of supporting documentation backing an individual’s claim of coerced debt, temporarily pause collection activities after it receives the necessary documentation and permanently stop collection activities if there is a finding of coerced debt. 

Following a year in which a different version of the bill failed in the House, both legislative chambers passed the bill unanimously. 

Dyslexia screenings: Senate Bill 349 requires the Department of Correction to study its means to screen people in prison for dyslexia and submit a report on its findings to the legislature by the end of the year. 

An earlier version of the bill would have called on the DOC to conduct dyslexia screenings for individuals within 60 days of their intake if they were not previously screened by the agency. 

Juvenile justice: House Bill 5508 requires the establishment of a gender responsiveness subcommittee to identify gaps in statute regarding gender response work and develop a framework for maintaining sex trafficking police data. The subcommittee would collaborate with other committees to, among other things, make recommendations addressing specialized treatment in foster care for children experiencing sexual abuse or sex trafficking. 

The proposal also updates the state’s “reentry success plan” for children released from the state’s custody to ensure the use of “credible messengers” as mentors for a period lasting up to two years and to ensure that the youths have access to job training programs. The reentry success plan seeks to help youths successfully reintegrate into their communities, while credible messengers are typically people with lived experience in the criminal legal system who have successfully transitioned back into society. 

Both the House and Senate passed the measure unanimously. 

Wrongful incarceration: Senate Bill 439 makes people wrongfully convicted of a crime eligible to receive a payout if their conviction was vacated or reversed on “grounds consistent with innocence” as opposed to those dismissed on grounds of innocence or serious misconduct by a state agent. 

The bill defines grounds consistent with innocence as “a situation in which a conviction was vacated or reversed and there is substantial evidence of innocence, whether such evidence was available at the time of investigation or trial or is newly discovered.” 

It would set a 90-day timeline in which the state’s claims commissioner must determine whether a claimant meets eligibility requirements. It would also allow a claimant’s estate to seek compensation in the event that the person is deceased, provided a claim was pending at the time of their death. 

Bills that didn’t pass

Cannabis: Senate Bill 444 would have established a sentence modification process for people charged with cannabis-related offenses that are no longer illegal. The proposal, which was also introduced last year, was not called to the Senate floor for a vote. 

It is not entirely clear how many people would benefit from the legislation. Lawmakers have said that it would likely take significant manual labor and funding to achieve the goal of the bill, partly because Connecticut’s criminal statutes historically have not specified which type of substance an individual was convicted of possessing, according to the Judicial Branch. 

Correctional ombuds: Lawmakers and Gov. Ned Lamont recently struck a deal that would result in the governor and the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus working together to choose someone on an interim basis to serve as the state’s first independent watchdog over the state’s prisons, reopening the hiring process for the position, and selecting an official nominee around the start of 2025. 

The deal arose after lawmakers expressed concerns about the process that resulted in Lamont choosing Hilary Carpenter, a veteran public defender and death penalty adversary, to lead the Office of the Correction Ombuds. But the legislature was unable to codify the plan into law on the last day of the session. Lamont and the BPRC, however, have said they would move forward with the agreement. 

Decriminalization of psilocybin: House Bill 5297 would have reduced the penalty for possessing less than half an ounce of psilocybin from a crime that carries a possible prison sentence to a fine — $150 for a first offense and $200 to $500 for a second offense. Psilocybin is a chemical compound obtained from certain types of hallucinogenic mushrooms, according to the Office of Legislative Research. 

The legislation passed out of the Judiciary Committee, but it died after a referral to the Transportation Committee. 

Falsification of records: House Bill 5055, a response to the State Police ticketing scandal, would have explicitly made it a Class D felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine, for any individual acting in a law enforcement capacity to intentionally falsify information in a law enforcement record.

The measure passed unanimously out of the House, but it was not taken up and debated in the Senate. Winfield said there was concern about a provision amended into the bill that would have prohibited the disclosure of any record pertaining to a formal complaint against a police officer prior to the investigation of said complaint. He said time ran out before the concern about it being overly broad could be addressed. 

Judicial selection: House Bill 5380 would have made adjustments to the process overseeing judicial nominations by changing the makeup of the Judicial Selection Commission from six attorneys and six non-lawyers to eight attorneys, each of whom has practiced law in Connecticut for at least a decade, and four non-lawyers. 

It would have limited the length of time that candidates recommended to the bench would remain on the governor’s nomination list to 10 years. It also would have required that the commission report to the legislature statistics on the areas of professional experience of candidates interviewed, recommended and denied by the panel. And it would have required that the commission explain why it denies a recommendation for judicial nomination to a candidate or judge.

The House approved the bill, but it died in the Senate. 

Secondary stops: House Bill 5324 would have turned certain motor vehicle violations, such as failing to have two working headlights or possessing tinted windows not in compliance with state law, into “secondary violations” and prohibited police from stopping vehicles only to enforce one of the offenses. 

The bill, which has been proposed in recent legislative sessions, did not make it to the House floor for a debate and subsequent vote. This year, Stafstrom said, conversations evolved from turning certain violations into secondary stops to a consideration of whether the legislature should just remove those provisions from the penal code altogether. But, he said, time ran out before lawmakers could reach a consensus. 

Street takeovers: House Bill 5413 would have provided municipalities with the option to adopt ordinances to levy financial penalties against people organizing, participating in or gathering with the intent to observe a “street takeover,” the impeding of public roadways or parking lots with motor vehicles with the intent to cause disorder or create a nuisance.

Under the proposal, municipalities could have set fines up to $1,000 for a first offense, $1,500 for a second offense and $2,000 for all subsequent violations, as opposed to the current maximum penalty for an ordinance violation of $250. It would have allowed municipalities to impound vehicles involved in street takeovers until fines were paid. The bill would have also established a 45-day revocation of a person’s driver’s license if they violate the statute, except for when a third offense occurs, when the state would then permanently strip away their ability to drive. 

The House unanimously passed the proposal, but it did not make it through the Senate.