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For people with criminal records
For people with criminal records

Author: Unlock Admin

Comment on article in The Independent – “We should encourage more employers to do the same”

The leading charity for people with convictions has defended a Tower Hamlets school employing a convicted killer and called on more employers to hire ex criminals who have become positive members of society. In response to an article in The Independent and on BBC News, Christopher Stacey, Co-director of Unlock, said:

“We speak to people with criminal convictions every day who are struggling to find work many years after they have served their sentence. With over a quarter of people out-of-work having received a criminal record in the last 10 years, it’s in society’s interest to enable people who have offended in the past to become contributors to society rather than burdens on the state.

 

“With over 10.5 million people in the UK with a criminal record, we need to encourage employers to treat every applicant on a case-by-case basis and not have blanket exclusions towards people with criminal records. That’s why campaigns like Ban the Box, and the recent commitment by David Cameron to apply this approach to the civil service, are so important in changing the attitudes of employers towards people with a criminal record.

 

“People who have committed crime cannot change the past, but they can focus on what they do in the future. Ian Devlin looks to have done everything he can since he was released from prison to become an active, positive member of society. The school clearly recognised this in their recruitment process. We should encourage more employers to do the same.”

 

– Ends –

 

Notes to editors

  1. Press/media
  2. Unlock is an independent, award-winning charity for people with convictions which exists for two simple reasons. Firstly, Unlock assists people to move on positively with their lives by empowering them with information, advice and support to overcome the stigma of their previous convictions. Secondly, Unlock seeks to promote a fairer and more inclusive society by challenging discriminatory practices and promoting socially just alternatives.
  3. There are over 10.5 million people in the UK that have a criminal record.
  4. Unlock’s website is unlock.devchd.com.

Insurers are not following good practice when dealing with criminal records

Last month, the Financial Conduct Authority published an occasional paper on access to financial services. I fed into this work, particularly focusing on the issues people with convictions face in accessing insurance. So it was good to see the authors include an especially challenging section of the report focused at a lack of buy-in to industry guidance.

There was heavy reference to the work that Unlock has done with the Association of British Insurers (ABI), including developing good practice, but highlighted how:

“it is still commonplace for proposal forms to have questions such as “have you ever been convicted””

The ABI guidance states that it is good practice to refer only to ‘unspent’ convictions, so clearly insurers are not doing this.

guidance
Extract from the FCA occasional paper

Although it didn’t name the companies involved, the FCA paper included two anonymous examples of current questions by home insurers and motor insurers.

question
Extract from the FCA occasional paper

The poor wording of questions by insurers is a major problem. Unlock’s helpline regularly gets contacted by people using insurance websites and asking us for clarity about what they do and don’t need to disclose. Very often, this is because the insurance company hasn’t made it clear that they don’t need to disclose convictions that are now spent under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.

This is something we’re looking at. We’ve had one our helpline advisors do some research into the questions asked by insurers, and we’re in the process of pulling this together and analysing the findings.

As an aside, it was good to see a number of other issues featured in the occasional paper, including:

  1. The numbers of people affected – In the infographic that the FCA used, they said that 750,000 people with unspent convictions and their families can struggle. This comes from a figure we presented a couple of years ago, and this is a conservative estimate of the numbers with unspent convictions. Although this figure is an underestimate for another reason – it doesn’t include those that are potentially covered by some of the misleading questions that insurers ask (see below). When this is taken into account, the numbers affected by the practice of insurers runs into the millions, given there’s over 10.5 million people in the UK with a criminal record.
  2. The lack of insurance products for people with unspent convictions
  3. How people with convictions can be good customers

More information

  1. You can find out more about the FCA occasional paper.
  2. There are details of our policy work on fair access to insurance and dealing with misleading questions.
  3. For practical self-help information on insurance, visit the information section on our website.
  4. There is practical guidance for insurers

From inmates to entrepreneurs

Last month, the Centre for Entreprenuers (CfE) published some brilliant research, From inmates to entreprenuers, looking at the role of setting up businesses and how they can help to break the cycle of reoffending.

We were pleased to support the research by carrying out a survey alongside the CfE which had 158 responses from people with convictions in the community.

As part of the research, 83% said that having a criminal record made it harder to start a business, with 89% saying it made it harder to get insurance for your business.

I was asked to provide a comment for the report. I explained how we know that people with convictions face significant stigma and discrimination from employers as a direct result of their criminal record. Although more work needs to be done on combating this, entrepreneurship is an important alternative that, for some, is the right path towards a productive life as a law-abiding member of society. This research is an important contribution to this area and makes recommendations at both a strategic and operational level to maximise the opportunity that entrepreneurship provides people in achieving their potential.

 

Written by Christopher Stacey, Co-director of Unlock

We must encourage and support employers to recruit people from prison

Whilst government announcements last month to reform prisons and improve prisoner education are welcomed, much more needs to be done to encourage and support employers to recruit people with a criminal record.

Employers like Timpsons and Greggs have shown that people with convictions can make fantastic employees and that there is actually a business as well as a social benefit in opening up job vacancies to them. That’s why the Ban the Box campaign, led by Business in the Community, has been so important. Similarly, the Employer Forum for Reducing Reoffending (EFFRR) does excellent work, but as Dame Sally Coates noted in her review, it is still relatively small in scale. There’s also the national See Potential campaign led by the Department for Work and Pensions; they have focused in on people with a criminal record in encouraging employers to think differently about how they recruit.

People with convictions are not inherently ‘a risk’. There is a broad range of ‘ex-offenders’ and in our work with employers we emphasise the importance of recruiters not discounting applicants simply because of their criminal record. For those leaving prison, the cost of unemployment strongly translates into increased chances of reoffending.

Reforms to prisons must go hand-in-hand with more work done at a local, regional and national level to encourage and support employers. So-called ‘reform prisons’ will need to focus on the employment outcomes of those released, which is also important. Community Rehabilitation Companies will be an important part of this puzzle too, supporting people as they leave prison or serving their sentence in the community, yet there is little evidence of CRC’s supporting employers in an effective way.

The national work of Ban the Box, See Potential and EFFRR are important in changing attitudes. Regional employer networks, as recommended by the Coates Review, may well be an important connector between national initiatives and individual prisons supporting individuals to find employment on release.

More information 

  1. You can find out more about our fair access to employment project

Help us to scrap ‘disqualification by association’: The government are consulting on changes to the childcare disqualification arrangements

Ever since ‘disqualification by association’ (DbA) hit the headlines about 18 months ago, we have been working to try and scrap the regulations that have had a significant and unnecessary impact on the partners of those with a criminal record.

Earlier this month, the Department for Education (DfE) published a consultation with proposals for change. The deadline for responses to the consultation is 1st July 2016.

In the consultation, the DfE have put forward three options. We’re supporting option 1, which is to remove disqualification by association in schools and non-domestic registered settings.

We’re putting together a formal response to the consultation. We’re keen to build into this response as much evidence as we can to help support our recommendations.

We’ve put together a number of questions that we’re looking for answers to. We need your help!

  1. Have you been personally affected by disqualification by association? If so, how? What was the outcome?
  2. Which of the options in the Government consultation do you support, and why?
  3. Do you think any of the options wouldn’t help? If so, why?
  4. Would you be willing to be an anonymous case study? If so, please go into more detail about your story

Send your answers, and any other information you think is relevant, to casework@unlock.org.uk. We have a strict policy of confidentiality and will not share any of your personal details – anything we use will be anonymised.

To give us time to build in your evidence, we need to receive your thoughts and evidence by Sunday 26th June at the latest, although the earlier the better.

Make sure you respond too!

The more responses that the government receive, the better. So, as well as sending us your comments, you can respond to the consultation directly. If you can, send us the details of what you submit.

Thank you for your support.

More information

  1. You can read the Government consultation.
  2. Find out more about our work on this issue on our policy page for disqualification by association.
  3. For practical information on how DbA works, read the guidance on our information site.
  4. Find out more about sending your details to us and what we do with it.
  5. Discuss this consultation on our online forum.

Help us to scrap ‘disqualification by association’: The government are consulting on changes to the childcare disqualification arrangements

Ever since ‘disqualification by association’ (DbA) hit the headlines about 18 months ago, we have been working to try and scrap the regulations that have had a significant and unnecessary impact on the partners of those with a criminal record.

Earlier this month, the Department for Education (DfE) published a consultation with proposals for change. The deadline for responses to the consultation is 1st July 2016.

Find out more about the consultation, details of what we’re doing and how you can help on our information site.

Lord Ramsbotham introduces Private Members Bill to shorten rehabilitation periods

Lord Ramsbotham, Unlock’s President, has introduced a Private Members Bill into the House of Lords which would shorten the rehabilitation periods that apply under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (ROA).

The Bill, which had it’s first reading yesterday, proposes a number of changes. One of most significant elements is that sentences of over 4 years in prison would become spent 4 years after the end of the full sentence.

Although the Bill is a long way from becoming law, it’s a welcome step forward in getting further reform to the ROA back on the agenda.

More information

  1. You can follow the progress of the Bill on the Parliament website.
  2. You can find out more information about our work to get further reform to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.
  3. There is practical information on how the law currently operates on our information site.

Were the effects of accepting a caution explained to you? Send us a copy of what you were given

Our helpline receives enquiries every day from individuals who have accepted cautions without feeling like they understand the effects of it.

The Home Office guidance on cautions states that ‘the significance of the admission of guilt in agreeing to accept a caution must be fully and clearly explained to the individual before they are cautioned.’

However, different police forces give different guidance and have different forms in place.

We’re interested in seeing copies of cautions that people have accepted in the last two years. This will give us a good idea of the type of written information people were given before they signed to accept the caution.

Find out more on our information site.

Timetable for implementation – Charities Act 2016

The Cabinet Office has published a timetable for implementation of the Charities Act 2016, which received Royal Assent on the 16th May 2016.

The relevant section that impacts on people with criminal records will come into force on 1st April 2017.

We’re working with the Charity Commission and there’ll be more news in the coming months. We’ll be posting updates onto our dedicated policy page.

Unlock submits evidence to review of Youth Justice

Today we have published our submission to the review of youth justice.

Our submission focuses on criminal records, disclosure and young people.

Background

  1. In September 2015, Michael Gove announced a review of the youth justice system.
  2. In February 2016, Charlie Taylor, who’s leading the review, published his interim report.
  3. In response to his particular interest in criminal records, Unlock has submitted evidence to the review.
  4. Download: Review of Youth Justice – Unlock submission

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