For people with criminal records
We have today published the written response we have submitted to the Work and Pensions Committee Inquiry into the support for ex-offenders.
Background
Working with other organisations is important to us. It often means we can achieve more than by working alone or we can help other organisations to achieve more themselves. For example, we:
We also provide open-access to a vast amount of information and resources through our websites. These websites are set up primarily to support people with convictions as part of the range of support we provide directly to individuals. However, we want as many people to benefit from our resources and we encourage organisations to use them as part of the delivery of their own work.
We are, however, seeing a rise in the number of enquiries from service-providers received by our helpline, which is set up and funded to provide support for individuals themselves.
That’s why we’ve published a document which explains our approach to working with other organisations. The aim is to clarify what support we can offer other organisations and how it can be accessed.
You can download our approach here.
We’re delighted to announce that Unlock’s criminal record disclosure training has been endorsed by the Probation Institute. It also means that we’re now a Probation Institute Endorsed Learning Provider.
Commenting on the news, Christopher Stacey, Co-director of Unlock, said:
“Those working in the probation sector are one of the key audiences for our criminal record disclosure training. We know that, historically, probation officers 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.”
“The main reason we deliver training to probation providers and other organisations that deliver front-line services is so that we improve the quality of the support provided to people with convictions. We know from the feedback that we get that the training is high-quality and relevant to probation providers. We hope that this endorsement process will enable us to work with more probation services to help them to more effectively support their clients with the disclosure of their criminal records.”
Savas Hadjipavlou, Chief Executive of the Probation Institute, said:
“We are very pleased that the partnership between Unlock and the Probation Institute announced last October is producing results and particularly delighted that Unlock has become a Probation Institute Endorsed Learning Provider. Our endorsement arrangements support those working in probation enabling access to relevant and high quality training that can contribute to their continuing professional development”
A child who has offended in England and Wales is shackled to the mistakes of their past by a criminal record system which is punitive, and holds them back from reaching their full potential, according to a report released today by the Standing Committee for Youth Justice (SCYJ).
The report, which reviews criminal record systems in over a dozen countries, finds England and Wales to be an outlier in the extent to which it ties children to past offending.
“A child in England and Wales is not only more likely to acquire a criminal record, but this record will affect them for longer, and more profoundly, than in any of the countries reviewed”
said Penelope Gibbs, Chair of the SCYJ.
“A child who has shoplifted a couple of times will suffer the disproportionate penalty of not only having the offences recorded for life, but also having to disclose it at key points – such as entering university or applying for certain jobs, such as a teacher, or a police officer. No other country reviewed inflicts such tough penalties on a child who offends.”
The far reaching effects on a child go well beyond their sentence. Children with a criminal record face stigma and discrimination in accessing education, training, employment, travel and housing and these obstacles can follow a child into adulthood impacting adversely on their life chances and their ability to reintegrate positively in to society.
In 2013/14 over 60,000 cautions and convictions – all with criminal record implications – were handed out to children in England and Wales. These records will have to be disclosed for many years, and some forever.
The SCYJ is launching a campaign today calling for radical reform of the law on childhood criminal records. Its recommendations include shorter rehabilitation periods, expanding the current filtering system, and wiping the slate clean after ten years.
Christopher Stacey, Co-director of Unlock, in supporting SCYJ’s campaign for reform, said:
“There are over 10.5 million people in the UK with a criminal record, with the vast majority of these being obtained when people are young. Every day we’re contacted by people who are facing stigma and discrimination because of offences they committed when they were under 18. This directly impacts on children’s chances long into adulthood, often for the rest of their lives.”
“Children that commit crime need to be rehabilitated and our youth justice system is supposed to be specifically designed to not impose retributions. However, when it comes to criminal records, the system treats children in a very similar way to adults.”
“There are many parts to the criminal record disclosure system that are disproportionate and unnecessary. A specific attempt to ensure that criminal records do not blight the lives of children is long-overdue. That’s why we’re actively supporting the campaign launched today. The recommended changes would result in a fairer and more calibrated system.”
Today we’ve published our Spring 2016 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: Spring 2016 Activities Newsletter.
You can receive our newsletters direct to your inbox by signing up to our mailing list.
As the development of our website for employers continues, we’ll no longer be posting news specifically for employers on the main Unlock website. Instead, we’ll be posting directly onto the news section Recruit!, our website for employers.
You can continue to find the news about our Fair Access to Employment project on this site, and there will be occasions where similar posts will appear on both sites where the news relates to both employers and other groups.
As always, to receive any or all of our news updates direct to your email inbox just sign up to our mailing list.
On the 16th March, the Charities Bill received Royal Assent.
Following on from concerns raised by Sir Edward Garnier in January, we’re pleased to see that:
We’re now focusing our efforts on working with the Charity Commission to ensure that:
We will continue to keep the trustee section of our website up to date with news and developments as they arise.
Today, we’re delighted to publish Unlocking the helpline, an independent analysis and evaluation of our confidential peer-run helpline carried out by Professor Sue Wilkinson of the University of York.
Ever since Unlock started as a charity over 15 years ago, we’ve provided peer advice to people with convictions. Eight years ago we employed our first dedicated member of staff to run our helpline and for over 7 years we’ve been recruiting volunteers from the community in Kent (including from nearby open prisons).
Although a lot has changed in that time, one thing has remained the same – people with convictions continue to come to us looking for information, advice and support to try and deal with the stigma and discrimination they’re facing because of their criminal record.
We speak to thousands of people every year – people facing a wide-range of issues relating to their criminal records. Finding a job, getting insurance, renting a house and going abroad on holiday, to name but a few.
However, as an independent service that’s charitably funded and reliant on trusts, foundations and donations to continue operating, it’s important that we can show that what we’re doing is making a difference and that it deserves support. As is the case with many helplines, it’s hard to show the impact it has on the people that contact us.
So we set about trying to find out more. It wasn’t really about numbers. We know how many people we speak to. We have a good idea of who they are, where they come from and what problems they’re having. What we didn’t know was answers to questions like:
That’s why a couple of years ago we embarked on undertaking an independent evaluation of our helpline with the support of Professor Sue Wilkinson of the University of York; she’s an expert in conversational analysis. We worked hard to make sure that the system we set up would enable a robust evaluation to take place without getting in the way of the confidentiality we attach to the helpline.
Over the space of five months, two of our helpline advisors recorded over 200 calls (with the callers’ permission). We then handed over the recordings to Sue and her team and waited for the results.What you can read below is a summary of the report and its key findings. You can also download the full report, which has been independently written by the author, Sue Wilkinson.
We are delighted with the findings in Unlocking the helpline – with this report we have strong, indepedent evidence to show how our helpline works and how it operates. It shows the value of having people with personal experience, the benefit of having a supportive voice at the end of the phone and the importance of knowing you’re speaking to somebody who knows what they’re talking about.
We hope that this report will support our efforts in continuing the run our helpline in a way that is independent, confidential, high-quality, peer run and reliable.
Some of the findings and comments in the report that stood out to me were:
“Overall, the helpline appears extremely effective as a source of information, and it is clearly also providing callers with a significant amount of non-informational support.”
“The Unlock helpline is relatively unusual in that the call-takers do not strive for neutrality: rather, one of its ‘hallmarks’ is the degree of understanding and empathy that is displayed by the call-takers, as part of the process of providing non-informational help and support for callers.”
“Call-takers promote positive thinking and discourage negative thinking.”
“Offering reassurance and boosting confidence fit well with Unlock’s aim of empowerment of people with convictions.”
“Call-takers clearly draw on their personal and professional experience”
We are grateful to Professor Sue Wilkinson of the University of York and her team for all their hard work on this report. We hope you find the report an interesting read.
Unlock has today welcomed figures obtained by the BBC that show police forces deciding to remove individuals from the sex offenders register.
Christopher Stacey, Co-Director of Unlock, said:
“Back in 2012 we welcomed the Governments introduction of the review process. It allows people subject to lifetime registration on the sex offenders register the right to apply to have their name removed after 15 years, meaning they are no longer monitored by the police.
“The figures published today show that the police are clearly putting this review process into action. There are safeguards in place to ensure that the police only agree to remove somebody from the register where that person can demonstrate that their risk has been minimised to a degree that it is no longer necessary for them to be on there.
“At a time a reducing resources, it is important that the police are able to effectively target them towards those people who pose a genuine risk. The review process enables the police to exercise their professional judgement to remove from the register those who have turned their life around in the 15 years since they were convicted.”
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Notes to editors
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The Centre for Entrepreneurs and Unlock are working together to better understand the role of entrepreneurship in supporting people with criminal records. We know that finding employment with a criminal record can be a struggle, and we are interested in exploring whether starting a business is a viable alternative.
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