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For people with criminal records

Category: News on policy issues

Unlock comment – Lammy review

Commenting on the report by David Lammy MP and his recommendations for reform to the criminal records disclosure regime, Christopher Stacey, co-director of Unlock, said:

“This important review rightly recognises the significant negative impact that the current criminal records disclosure regime has on people’s chances of finding work after they’ve turned their lives around. It unnecessarily anchors people to their past, locks them out of the labour market and has a considerable financial cost to society through out-of-work benefits. The regime is in desperate need of reform.

 

“Unlock has long supported the introduction of a criminal records tribunal, a process that would enable individuals to apply to have their criminal record deemed spent or filtered and, if granted, would mean it must no longer be disclosed to employers on a relevant criminal record check. There is evidence from overseas that this approach works, and it would help to address the injustice that many people face as a result of what are currently arbitrary fixed rules that take no account of the positive steps people have taken since their criminal record.”

Press/media enquiries

Following publication of the report, Unlock has featured in the following  publications/programmes.

CIPD

Personnel Today

The Express

BBC Radio Kent

The Independent

 

Basic DBS checks are coming soon – find out more

The Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) is introducing basic criminal record checks for people in England & Wales. This replaces the service previously provided by Disclosure Scotland.

This is a significant development for both people with criminal records and employers in England & Wales, so we’ve developed a new information page dedicated to basic DBS checks as a one-stop-shop for the latest information, advice and updates. It’s been written primarily for people with convictions, but with employers and others in mind too, covering things like:

  1. How to get a basic check
  2. Should the check be sent to the applicant or the employer?
  3. What are eCertificates & eResults?
  4. Our advice for individuals
  5. Our advice to employers

Basic checks are a type of criminal record check that can be used by employers and other organisations, for example when they are recruiting staff. They can also be used by insurance companies in validating claims. Basic checks show any ‘unspent’ criminal records (as defined by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974). Once a conviction or caution is ‘spent’, it no longer shows on a basic check.

Why is this important?

  1. It’s been a long time coming – The introduction of basic checks has been in the business plan of the DBS since 2002 (back when it was the CRB, the Criminal Records Bureau).
  2. It’s highly likely to mean an overall increase in criminal record checks – The DBS is anticipating around 1.7 million basic checks in the first year. This compares to just under 1.2 million in 2015/16 when it was done by Disclosure Scotland.
  3. It means criminal record checks will be available online – The basic DBS check will be available in both paper form and online. The setting up of an online account (for both applicants and organisations) will allow access to what are referred to as “eCertificates”.
  4. It makes the type of DBS check being done even more important – Employers often refer to a role “involving a DBS check”. Up until now, reference to “a DBS check” could be taken as code for meaning a standard or enhanced check, which meant the disclosure of cautions and convictions, even once spent. Now, with the DBS doing a basic level check, it’s even more important that employers explain what type of check a specific role involves to make sure that applicants clearly understand what they need to disclose.
  5. It’ll hopefully reduce ineligible checks – We’ve been cautiously encouraging the introduction of basic checks as a key part of how to reduce the numbers of employers carrying out levels of checks (i.e. standard or enhanced checks) for roles that are not eligible for them.

What is happening and when?

From 1st September 2017, the DBS will begin processing basic criminal record check applications.

There will be a transition phase between 1st September and 31st December, where basic checks will still be available from Disclosure Scotland too. After the 31st December 2017, basic checks will no longer be available to applicants in England & Wales from Disclosure Scotland.

To start with, the basic check service from DBS will be open to a small number of large registered organisations. This will be followed by an online process for individuals, expected to be from 1st January 2018.

Disclosure Scotland will continue to process basic check applications for people in Scotland.

We’re waiting for more information from the DBS about the exact timescales, and once we have these, they’ll be on this page.

We’re expecting the DBS to publish its own online guidance on basic checks soon. Once it’s available, we’ll link to it from here.

For more information

The information in this post is likely to develop over time. For more information, and the latest details, visit our information page on basic DBS checks.

This was originally published as an update on our information site. 

New research about the impact of criminal records on women trying to exit prostitution

The charity nia has this week published I’m no criminal – a report that examines the impact of prostitution-specific criminal records on women seeking to exit prostitution.

The report shows that the constant disclosure of these criminal records has led to discrimination and harassment and entrenched them in prostitution and the criminal justice system through no fault of their own even as they tried to build a new life.

Speaking about the launch, Karen Ingala Smith, CEO of nia, said,

“We are proud to launch this report today and to stand with women seeking to challenge the blatant injustice of a discriminatory, flawed and failed policy which only traps women deeper in prostitution and offending however hard they may be trying to escape such exploitation.”

Christopher Stacey, Co-director of Unlock and who spoke at the launch in the House of Commons, said:

“Today’s report adds yet even more evidence to show that the government’s current DBS filtering system is broken and not fit for purpose. It is clearly disproportionate to have lifelong disclosure attached to convictions that women have received from when being involved in prostitution. We urge the government take immediate steps to reform the system and make sure that old, minor or irrelevant convictions and cautions are not disclosed on criminal record checks.”

nia will be leading a campaign to erase prostitution-specific criminal records.

We are supporting the nia campaign as part of our work to reform the DBS filtering system.

Follow on Twitter: #Imnocriminal

Blog – ‘Through the gate’ services are failing to support people leaving prison into employment

‘Through the gate’ services are failing to support people into employment. That’s one of the conclusions in a report published last week by HM Inspectorate of Probation and HM Inspectorate of Prisons into the ‘through the gate resettlement services’ that were introduced in 2015 and run by newly formed ‘Community Rehabilitation Companies’ (CRCs).

Right from the start of the government’s ‘transforming rehabilitation’ programme, there were a number of concerns about the problems that would arise. For me, there are three key things I took away from the report last week:

1. Too much focus on contracts

As the report found last week:

“There is much more CRCs should be doing to make a difference to the lives of those they are meant to be helping, but we found them focusing most of their efforts on meeting their contractual targets, to produce written resettlement plans. Responding to the needs of prisoners received much less attention, but meaningful expectations are not specified clearly in CRC contracts, and good, persistent work is not incentivised or rewarded sufficiently.”

This has been clear to me in the training I’ve delivered to practitioners working in (and for) CRCs. The training I deliver looks at criminal record and disclosure rules, and how best to deal with that in terms of employment. Generally, despite a real willingness to want to help their clients, the staff simply do not have the time or resources, and instead they’ve had to focus on the “must-do” parts of the contract.

The review of probation that the Ministry of Justice has been working on needs to respond to these issues. Things are clearly not working as they are.

2. Lack of support into employment

Of the 98 individuals looked at in the report, none were helped by ‘through the gate’ services to enter education, training or employment after release. This is a damning indictment:

“The impact of Through the Gate services on education, training and employment was minimal. No prisoners were helped by Through the Gate services to enter education, training or employment after release.”

 

“We did not see any cases where Through the Gate services had assisted a prisoner to get employment after release. We did not find CRCs promoting links to local colleges or education providers for the prisoners where this would have been appropriate. There were some examples, however, of handover to specialist ETE staff in the CRC in the community for them to make onward referrals.”

Sadly, none of this is surprising. I highlighted many of these issues last year to the Work and Pensions Committee’s as part of their “support for ex-offenders” inquiry. I’d urge the government to implement the recommendations of that inquiry. In particular, the government needs to state clearly who has ultimately responsibility for helping prison leavers into work. CRCs should be required to track the outcomes of the people they help, including whether they have helped them into work. This should be a key measure by which CRCs are deemed successful.

3. Not enough being done to help open bank accounts before release

This problem is well-known to Unlock. A basic bank account is a fundamental necessity in modern society, particularly when seeking employment. That was the case over 10 years ago when we first started to look at this.

I led a project for many years to persuade banks to open their doors to applications from people in prison who were near to their release. Once we’d managed that, we then worked with both prisons and banks to implement safe and effective systems. To cut a long story short, it was very successful – by the end of the project in 2014 we had set up 74 prison-bank partnerships, and overall 114 prisons had links with high-street banks. The job wasn’t finished completely – which is why we made a number of recommendations (particularly to NOMS, as it was then) to act upon.

Unfortunately, the end of this project was closely followed by the ‘transforming rehabilitation’ changes. Again, to cut a long story short, it seems that things have been going downhill ever since.

In the executive summary of the report, it states:

“All except one of the prisons we visited were able to set bank accounts up for prisoners, but even where this service was available, some prisoners were still released without bank accounts. Other work on finance, benefits and debt was not being delivered to any great extent.”

In the main body of the report, it states:

“Some prisoners do not have their own bank accounts, and this can cause lengthy delays in claiming benefits. We expected that all the prisons we visited would be able to arrange bank accounts where needed. We saw some cases where this was recognised and assistance was given, but in others this need was recognised too late or overlooked completely.”

This has all the hallmarks of operational issues in the prisons. That wouldn’t be a surprise, give many of the changes in the last few years. Although it’s part of the contract of CRCs to help people open a bank account before release, what last week’s report clearly highlighted is how, generally, the ‘through the gate’ element to their work is not working well enough.

That’s why today I’ve written to the Prisons and Probation Minister, Sam Gyimah, to raise my concerns. I’ve recommended that he launch an immediate review into the provision of opening basic bank accounts for people in prison before they’re released. It’s clear that, operationally, the arrangements in prisons to open basic bank are not working as well as they should be. Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service need to get a grip of this, understand what the problems are, and find solutions to them.

Christopher Stacey

More information

  1. The report published last week is available to download.
  2. We’re working on improving the support to people with convictions into employment
  3. We continue to encourage the implementation of the recommendations we made around opening basic bank accounts for people before release from when we finished our project in 2014.

Criminal Records Bill receives its first reading in House of Lords

Lord Ramsbotham’s Private Members’ Bill on amending the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 has today had its First 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.

Second reading – the general debate on all aspects of the Bill – is yet to be scheduled.

 

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.

Rehabilitation in the internet age – The Google-effect and the disclosure of criminal records

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 provides people with criminal records protection from discrimination once their criminal record becomes ‘spent’.

In an article for the Probation Journal, published this month, Christopher Stacey highlights how media reports are increasingly available online and often mean spent convictions continue to be accessible to employers and others.

However, he also looks at a landmark case in 2014 that established a ‘right to be forgotten’, which enables people to ask for search results to be delisted from internet search engines. He examines to what extent this helps people with convictions.

The article is available to read and/or download from the Probation Journal

Conservative Party commit in manifesto to encourage employers to recruit people with convictions

The Conservative Party has included a commitment in their 2017 manifesto that aims to encourage and support employers to take on people with convictions.

It states:

“We will also work to help those groups who have in the past found it difficult to get employment, by incentivising employers to take them on. So for businesses employing…those who have committed a crime but who have repaid their debt to society…we will offer a holiday on their employers’ National Insurance Contributions for a full year”

An extract of the manifesto is below:

You can download the Conservative Manifesto 2017.

We recently called on the next government to pilot tax incentives to encourage employers.

Families of prisoners pay high insurance premiums and face more refusals

An article in the Independent reports that families of offenders face higher premiums and even flat refusals when it comes to getting insurance.

The article quotes a report by Unlock, which revealed that 37 per cent of the calls made to its helpline related to insurance.

It also revealed a startling issue; that many families of prisoners and former prisoners did not know that they had to declare the situation to their insurer. You can read the full article here.

 

Landmark Court of Appeal ruling – Government loses appeal against DBS filtering regime

Press release: 3rd May 2017

Ruling gives hope to thousands of people trying to put their past behind them

The Court of Appeal has today rejected the Government’s appeal to a decision of the High Court in January last year, which ruled that the criminal records disclosure scheme was disproportionate and unlawful.

The judgment, handed down today, involves a number of cases that were heard in the Court of Appeal in February this year, including cases brought by Liberty and Hodge, Jones & Allen, supported by Just for Kids Law.

The court ruled that the disclosure scheme has insufficient safeguards to be lawful, and that the scheme is disproportionate. In one case, a man was convicted in the 1980’s of ABH when he was 16-years-old and received a conditional discharge. The President of the Queen’s Bench Division, Sir Brian Leveson, said in his judgment:

“It is difficult to see how publication of this detail, 31 years on, is relevant to the risk of the public, or proportionate and necessary in a democratic society.”

Christopher Stacey, Co-director of Unlock, a leading charity for people with convictions that supported the legal challenge and who attended the hearing in the Court of Appeal, said:

“Thousands of people contact us every year because they are being unnecessarily anchored to their past as a result of a criminal record disclosure system and DBS filtering process which is blunt, restrictive and disproportionate.

 

“We’re delighted with the Court of Appeal’s ruling in this important case, which stands to affect many thousands of people with old or minor criminal records. Over 240,000 DBS checks every year disclose convictions or cautions. Since the filtering scheme was introduced in 2013, it’s helped some people with old and minor records to be free of the stigma and discrimination that so many face when they have something they have to disclose to an employer. However, the current system doesn’t go far enough. It operates with inflexible rules meaning that, for example, someone with more than one conviction on their record will have to disclose all of their convictions indefinitely, regardless of the nature or circumstances of the conviction or the length of time that has since passed. The system acts as an additional sentence that often runs for life. It desperately needs reform. These shortcomings have today been recognised by the Court of Appeal.

 

“We strongly urge the next government to take immediate steps to respond to today’s ruling by reforming our criminal records system. A fairer and more flexible system would be one with expanded automatic filtering rules and a discretionary filtering process with a review mechanism so that individual circumstances can be considered. This would enable those with old and minor convictions to move on positively with their lives and to more easily gain employment. It is common sense that, while certain offences need to be disclosed to employers, we should not be unnecessarily blighting the lives of people who are trying to get on in life by disclosing old, minor and irrelevant information that holds them back and stops them from reaching their potential. We are committed to continuing our work with government, the DBS, employers and other key stakeholders to drive forward these much needed reforms.”

Debaleena Dasgupta, Legal Officer at Liberty and solicitor for P, said:

“This important ruling gives hope to huge numbers of people whose ambitions have been dashed because of minor mistakes they made in the past.

 

“The Government must urgently fix this broken system that needlessly prevents people from rebuilding their lives and contributing to society. We look forward to seeing a fairer scheme which has the capacity to consider individual circumstances where appropriate.”

 

Notes

  1. Unlock has made a number of recommendations for reform to the DBS filtering system. These are available here.
  2. The judgement is available online.
  3. This judgement does not have any immediate impact on the current DBS filtering scheme.
  4. We have practical self-help information on how the current filtering system works on our information hub.
  5. Find out more information about our policy work on the DBS filtering process here.
  6. Summaries of the facts of the cases involved in the legal challenge are explained here.
  7. The current system is explained below:

The Police Act 1997 created the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS – formerly the Criminal Records Bureau), which provides details of a job applicant’s previous convictions to prospective employers.

For certain types of work, particularly work with children or vulnerable adults, the standard or enhanced certificates issued by the DBS used to list all the job applicant’s previous convictions and cautions. However, in 2013, the Government amended this scheme following a Court of Appeal ruling (T v Chief Constable of Greater Manchester) to introduce a “filtering” process. Single convictions for non-violent, non-sexual offences that did not lead to a custodial sentence (including a suspended one) will be “filtered” (i.e. not disclosed) after 11 years (five-and-a-half years if the person was under 18 at the time of the offence).

The new filtering process does not apply if a person has more than one conviction – regardless of the minor nature of the offences or the person’s circumstances at the time.

The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, which governs the circumstances in which a person has to admit to a previous conviction if asked, operates in a similar way. A person applying to work with children or vulnerable adults does not have to disclose a conviction which is “filtered”.

Watch our oral evidence to the Justice Committee inquiry into the disclosure of youth criminal records

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.

 

More information

  1. Posts about our work on youth criminal records can be found here.
  2. The specific details of the inquiry are here
  3. There are more general details about the work of the Justice Committee here

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