Earlier today co-director, Christopher Stacey, gave evidence to the Justice Committee’s inquiry into the disclosure of youth criminal records.
You can watch the session here or below.
Author: Unlock Admin
Do you have a conviction that will never be spent?
Unlock has long campaigned for fundamental changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (ROA), legislation that governs the disclosure of criminal records to employers, educational institutions, insurers and housing providers. Changes implemented in 2014 (through the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act 2012) focused mainly on reducing rehabilitation periods.
More than 8000 people every year receive a sentence of more than four years. As the law stands, these can never become spent meaning people will have to declare them for the rest of their life – on job applications, for housing or insurance. An unspent conviction is a lifelong barrier to moving on.
We think this should change and that’s we we’re campaigning for ROA reform. As part of our campaign, we use case studies to show why reform is necessary to help law abiding people with convictions move on.
What we need from you
If you have a conviction that can never become spent (i.e. a prison sentence of over 4 years), please contact us at policy@unlock.org.uk using the subject header ‘Call for evidence: ROA reform’. Please include:
- Your name
- Your date of birth
- Contact details (email and/or telephone) and how you’d like us to contact you
- The details of all your cautions/convictions including dates and a DBS certificate if you have one
- The difficulties you’ve faced, recently or in the past, as a result of your criminal record not becoming spent
- If you would be willing to contribute to any media coverage on this issue in future (this is for our reference, we won’t share your details without consent)
Any information you provide will be kept in line with our confidentiality policy. Any personal information provided to us will not be shared externally without your consent.
Find out more about how we handle your data
Find out more about our work on ROA reform.
Government “exploring” incentives for businesses that take on ex-offenders
Today the Work and Pensions Committee has published the Government’s response to its report on the support for ex-offenders leaving prison, which indicates that the Government has accepted the case made for many of the Committee’s recommendations and is looking for ways to take them forward, including considering a range of ways to incentive employers to take on ex-offenders leaving prison. The suggestion of offering reduced National Insurance contributions to those employers is particularly “noted with interest”.
This follows on from the Committee’s published report in December, which made recommendations after hearing evidence from organisations including Unlock.
Unlock welcomes new official open recruitment employer guide
Published by the Department for Work and Pensions in partnership with Business in the Community, the guide, Strengthening your workforce with talent from disadvantaged groups, comes after high demand from the business world for more help and support for employers to become inclusive.
Part of the See Potential campaign, it’s already been welcomed by the FSB Chairman Mike Cherry in the Telegraph’s Business pages last week and by the CBI’s President Paul Drechsler, CBE, in the Great Business Debate online. Many business organisations, such as the Institute of Directors, British Chambers of Commerce and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation are also behind the new toolkit.
With a particular section on people with criminal records, it includes 7 top tips for employers that have been drawn from our principles of fair chance recruitment and lists six useful organisations, including Unlock.
Responding to the launch of the guide, Christopher Stacey, Co-director of Unlock, said:
“We welcome the launch of this official open recruitment guide. It’s important that companies get a consistent message about how to be more open in their recruitment, and this guide pulls together many elements of good practice that we have embedded into our principles of fair chance recruitment. It’s a much-needed resource for companies looking at how to strengthen their workforce by making sure they’re not missing out on talent pool that exists amongst people with criminal records. From here we encourage the government to not only ramp up its work in supporting employers to be more open by providing practical hands-on support, but also by directly challenging those companies that we know have unfair and discriminatory policies and procedures.”
More information
- The official guide can be downloaded from the See Potential website.
- Unlock has a dedicated website for employers, Recruit!, which supports employers to recruit people with convictions and deal with criminal records fairly.
- We have posted about the guide on our website for employers.
- The website includes ten principles of fair chance recruitment and practical guidance for companies.
- It’s part of Unlock’s fair access to employment project.
Unlocking the potential of the UK’s ex-offenders
An article published by Nat West suggests that one remedy to fill the UK’s skills gap could be to hire more ex-offenders and discusses what is the best way to go about it.
Christopher Stacey contributes to the article, stating “We know from employers that have been proactive in recruiting people with convictions that they make good employees. The first thing we recommend any company does is look at its current policy and approach. ”
You can read the full article , including tips for employers who are considering hiring an ex-offender, here.
Unlock responds to Law Commission review of DBS filtering system – “is a damning indictment….a wider review is needed now more than ever”
In a detailed report published today, the Law Commission has recommended a wider review of the criminal record disclosure system.
In the most comprehensive operational assessment of the DBS filtering process to date, their conclusion is that:
“Given the vast array and magnitude of the problems identified by our provisional assessment of the disclosure system as a whole, there is a compelling case to be made in favour of a wider review. Our conclusion is that the present system raises significant concerns in relation to ECHR non-compliance and, what may be considered to be, the overly harsh outcomes stemming from a failure to incorporate either proportionality or relevance into disclosure decisions. An impenetrable legislative framework and questions of legal certainty further compound the situation. This is an area of law in dire need of thorough and expert analysis. A mere technical fix is not sufficient to tackle such interwoven and large scale problems.”
Their review had a specific focus on the current ‘list of offences that cannot be filtered’. On that, the report states:
“…the choice of offences in the list appears to lack coherence and a clear basis”
Because of the limited scope of the project, the report states that:
“We do not make recommendations about whether any particular offences should be added or removed from the list”
In examining the operational list, the Law Commission identified the following specific practical and operational problems:
- possible inaccuracy of the operational list;
- likely inefficiency in the system of offence codes;
- risk of unnecessary or inadequate disclosure;
- risk of the need for constant updating of the list not being met; and
- a lack of guidance for those answering exempted questions.
The report goes on to state that:
“Any recommendations that we made regarding the non-filterable list would clarify the contents of that list and make it more accessible for users of DBS, but more deep-seated confusion regarding the operation of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 and the exempted questions would remain. In Chapter 5 we discuss possible topics for a wider project addressing both the criminal records disclosure system and the rehabilitation of offenders scheme.”
Responding to the report, Christopher Stacey, Co-director of Unlock, said:
“Today’s report is a damning indictment of the current DBS filtering system and reinforces the concerns we’ve raised since it was first introduced in 2013. We are pleased that the Law Commission has listened to the criticisms that we and others put forward on the broader operation of the current system. Their recommendation for a wider review is needed now more than ever. The current system doesn’t go far enough: it is blunt, restrictive and disproportionate.
“These shortcomings were recognised by the High Court in January 2016, and we urge the government to withdraw their appeal and instead get to work in undertaking this wider review and finally establishing a proportionate disclosure system that is transparent, clear and fair. This will not only benefit those with old and minor cautions and convictions to move on positively with their lives, but it will also contribute towards building a fairer and more inclusive society”
Useful links
- You can find out more about the project the Law Commission carried out, including a copy of the report, on their website.
- There are details about our policy work on the DBS filtering system.
New ’10 things about criminal records’ guide for employability professionals
February 2019 update – We have done some work to update the original guide and have now published a version 2 of the guide.
People with criminal records make up a sizeable proportion of the unemployed population – 33% of Job Seekers Allowance claimants have received a criminal record in the last ten years. For many, it can be their main barrier to employment; people with convictions are the least likely ‘disadvantaged group’ to be employed, with nearly three-quarters (73%) of people unemployed on release from prison.
We know that employability professionals provide a vital form of support to people in the community. Yet according to a recent government report, only 29% of prison leavers received advice on dealing with their criminal record from the Work Programme. Historically, they have had very little training on supporting their clients with the complex laws around criminal records and how to practically deal with disclosing their criminal record to employers and others.
That’s why we deliver training to employability professionals; so that we improve the quality of the support provided to people with criminal records. We know from the feedback that we get that the training is high-quality and relevant to their work.
That’s also why we’ve recently worked with the Institute of Employability Professionals (IEP) and today have published a ’10 things about criminal records’ guide aimed specifically at employability professionals.
The guide is designed for practitioners that support people with criminal records into employment, including employability professionals, job centre advisors, careers advisors and probation officers.
The guide is available to download and forms part of IEP’s range of ’10 things’ guides. We hope it serves as a useful introduction and reference point for employability professionals. It provides an overview of the key areas, following a similar structure to that taken by our ‘Advising with Convictions’ one-day training course.
Our training courses are regularly run in London. Places can be booked online. In-house training sessions for larger teams are also available; if you’re interested in learning more, details are available online or you can email admin@unlock.org.uk.
Useful links
- The ’10 things about criminal records’ guide is available to download.
Second Reading in House of Lords for Bill to amend Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974
Lord Ramsbotham’s Private Members’ Bill on amending the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 has today had its Second Reading in the House of Lords.
The Bill, which would shorten the rehabilitation periods that apply under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (ROA), proposes a number of changes. One of the most significant elements is that sentences of over 4 years in prison would become spent 4 years after the end of the full sentence.
You can read the debate or watch online (from 12:55).
Despite widespread support in the House, the Government responding by saying that they “do not consider that the proposals in the Bill are appropriate”.
Private Members’ Bills are rarely successful without support from Government.
The Bill will now move to Committee stage.
In closing the debate, Lord Ramsbotham said:
“I have to say that I am extremely disappointed by the Minister’s response. When I represented the Bill as having been in close contact with a number of organisations—particularly Unlock, of which I am president, which is the national association of ex-offenders and therefore in touch with the difficulties that they are experiencing day after day—they did not put their concerns about the Bill lightly.”
“What I am suggesting is that in the context of the White Paper, it would be sensible for the Government to look at all aspects of resettlement, including this one. My offer to the Minister is that all those who have raised problems on the outside are more than willing to take part in that process.”
“I intend to table amendments in Committee. In the interim, I hope that the Minister will reconsider his rejection of what is on offer, because the issue is far too serious to be let go with the prospect of annual Bills and annual making progress on small points.”
Extracts from the debate
Lord Ramsbotham
“I believe that it should be that no one released from prison should face a lifetime of disclosure, without the prospect of review”
“The 48-month spent limit should be removed, with determinate sentences of over four years becoming spent four years from the end of the sentence, as proposed by the Government in their 2003 response to Breaking the Circle. Those serving an indeterminate sentence should be given the opportunity to achieve rehabilitated status through a process of evidence submission to a criminal records tribunal administered by members of the judiciary. As an incentive to desist from crime, anyone recalled to prison would automatically have their disclosure period reset.”
“The Government should establish an effective system for identifying and stopping ineligible checks, which too many of the 4 million checks each year currently are.
“Any rehabilitation programme worth its salt should include a disclosure scheme devised specifically to assist the employment process. The ineffectiveness of the existing Act has been compounded by the many changes since 1974, including sentence inflation, that have shifted the way in which offenders are treated by the criminal justice system in both sentencing and rehabilitation, rendering it unfit for purpose.”
Lord McNally
“One of the things I am most proud of is Section 139 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012. Unlock described it as positive but not perfect, and of course that is perfectly true. The fact is, though, that the reforms were as much as we could get our coalition partners to agree to.”
“The Taylor review is clear that we should develop a distinct approach to treating childhood offending. “Children first, offenders second”, is the mantra that Charlie Taylor advocated.”
“There is a strong case for following the logic of the Taylor report and the Government accepting the Carlile recommendation for the expungement of criminal records at attaining the age of 18, excluding homicide, serial sexual offences and other violent crime.”
Lord Carlile of Berriew
“If I have a slightly adverse comment about the Bill it is that, for my taste, it goes nothing like far enough. I do not believe that there is any really convincing evidence that using criminal records to prevent people obtaining perfectly ordinary jobs after a conviction that comes somewhere in the middle of the criminal calendar does anything other than send them back to prison. My view is that we should be very radical about these matters.”
“The Bill makes proportionate provisions that would make a significant, if not complete, contribution to people whose lives have started badly but whose potential can be unlocked.”
The Earl of Listowel
“The Bill is timely, at a time when the Prime Minister has recognised that so many people and families in this country have been left behind.”
Lord Dholakia
“More than 7,000 people a year are given sentences of over four years. At present they can never be rehabilitated for the purposes of the Act, however much they do to change their ways and over however long a period.”
“Unfair discrimination against ex-offenders is wrong in principle, because it imposes an additional illegitimate penalty of refusal of employment on people who have already served the judicially ordered punishment for their crime. It also reduces public safety, because an ex-offender’s risk of reoffending is reduced by between a third and a half if he or she gets and keeps a job.”
Lord Berkeley of Knighton
“Hope can be achieved in a number of ways, but certainly the ability to feel that a debt to society has been paid, to wipe clean a slate and to be rewarded by having an offence and sentence regarded as spent is a vital part of rehabilitation, especially in the young, whose youthful indiscretions might otherwise permanently blight adulthood.”
Baroness Bakewell of Hardington Mandeville
“The existing Rehabilitation of Offenders Act provides no opportunity for an ex-offender’s sentence to be spent if a custodial sentence of four years or more is imposed. Although it is widely accepted that custodial sentences are reserved for more serious crimes, it must be said that many offenders in this category are left with little option when any hope of gaining employment is taken away from them.”
“Experience shows that the existing Act will not prevent the dishonest from lying to gain employment. However, it impedes the progress of those who could otherwise lead progressive and law-abiding lives, contributing to the economy through gainful employment.”
“We must also recognise that the entire notion of modern, balanced, restorative justice is built on the belief that an individual has the capacity to rehabilitate, to learn to make positive life choices and to become a productive, contributing member of society.”
“That Act is now completely inconsistent with contemporary sentencing practice. The result is that, far from allowing reformed individuals the second chance that is promised in the Act, its shortcomings leave many excluded from any prospect of rehabilitation and meaningful employment after they have completed their sentences.”
“For those serving sentences of over four years, convictions can never be spent. Individuals are therefore forced to live with the shadow of their convictions, through a lifetime of disclosure and without the prospect of review.”
The Advocate-General for Scotland (Lord Keen of Elie)
“The noble Lord’s Bill seeks to allow determinate custodial sentences of any length to become spent. I recognise that he would like the current legislation to go further by enabling determinate custodial sentences of any length to become spent, but the Government consider that the present amendments to the Act that came into force in 2014 achieve the correct balance between rehabilitation of offenders and public protection. This is a two-sided coin and these issues have to be balanced. We do not feel there is a case for the law to go further at this stage.”
“The Government understand the noble Lord’s concerns and we are, of course, committed to helping ex-offenders who wish to make a fresh start and put their criminal history behind them. We are desperately anxious to ensure that people do not simply leave the prison gate one day and return another. Despite this, we do not support the noble Lord’s Bill, given the reasons I have already outlined. I note the noble Lord’s views, I understand them and I would welcome the opportunity to engage further with him about how we can increase the support that is available to ex-offenders.”
“Since 2016, we have been running a campaign to encourage more businesses to provide training and work opportunities for offenders and ex-offenders. This has been carried out in close collaboration with the Department for Work and Pensions’ See Potential campaign. The present campaign emphasises the general advantage to society of securing employment for ex-offenders and thereby reducing reoffending and unemployment.”
Lord Ramsbotham
“I have to say that I am extremely disappointed by the Minister’s response. When I represented the Bill as having been in close contact with a number of organisations—particularly Unlock, of which I am president, which is the national association of ex-offenders and therefore in touch with the difficulties that they are experiencing day after day—they did not put their concerns about the Bill lightly.”
“What I am suggesting is that in the context of the White Paper, it would be sensible for the Government to look at all aspects of resettlement, including this one. My offer to the Minister is that all those who have raised problems on the outside are more than willing to take part in that process.”
“I intend to table amendments in Committee. In the interim, I hope that the Minister will reconsider his rejection of what is on offer, because the issue is far too serious to be let go with the prospect of annual Bills and annual making progress on small points.”
More information
- You can follow the progress of the Bill on the Parliament website.
- You can find out more information about our work to get further reform to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.
- There is practical information on how the law currently operates on our information site.
Disqualified… from being a trustee or a senior manager
Later this year, the automatic disqualification rules will be extended to cover even more criminal convictions.
The new laws will automatically disqualify people with a wide range of criminal convictions from being charity trustees or senior managers. Those affected will have to resign or apply to the Charity Commission for waivers. In this Third Sector article, Christopher Stacey expresses his fear that this could have devastating consequences for many people and organisations when it comes into force in the autumn.
Winter 2016/17 Activities Newsletter
Today we’ve published our winter 2016/17 activities newsletter.
The newsletter provides an update of the news at Unlock in the last three months. It’s sent to everyone who’s on our public mailing list, and we hope it’s a useful way of keeping up to date with what we’ve been up to.
Read: Winter 2016/17 Activities Newsletter.
Previous newsletters are available online. You can receive future newsletters direct to your inbox by signing up to our mailing list.
