In an effort to argue for automatic pardons, this paper out of Santa Clara University identifies and estimates the “second chance gap” in Connecticut's “absolute pardons” to determine the share of individuals eligible for relief who haven’t expunged records because of hurdles in the petition process. 

Applying existing pardons law and proposed "Clean Slate" law to a sample of over 300,000 criminal records of individuals from Connecticut and extrapolating using the estimated population of people in the state with convictions, researchers estimate the number of folks eligible for pardons who have not received relief, those who fall into the "second chance gap".

Moreover, the paper estimates the number of years it would take for all eligible individuals to apply for and receive pardons and the rate at which the felony population would decline if automatic pardons were in place.