Unlock speaks to Paul Lewis of Radio 4 Money Box on how insurers are breaking the law by taking into account old criminal records, disadvantaging millions of people with spent convictions.
You can listen to the programme here
Category: Unlock in the media
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.
Government loses criminal records disclosure appeal
The Court of Appeal has rejected the Government’s appeal to a decision of the High Court, which ruled that the criminal records disclosure scheme was disproportionate and unlawful.
Reporting on the news, The Law Society Gazette said that the government will have to go back to the drawing board. In the article, Christopher Stacey of Unlock explained that the charity is contacted by thousands of people 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. You can read the full article here.
Personnel Today also reported that the government will have to rethink the criminal record disclosure rules following the defeat. Featuring in their article, Christopher Stacey urged the next Government to take immediate steps to respond to the ruling by reforming the criminal records system. You can read the full article here.Christopher also featured on Sky News where he welcomed the Court of Appeal’s decision.
Your finances in and out of prison – BBC Radio 4 Money Box live
Around 50% of offenders re-offend within a year. Lack of money for basic necessities can increase the risk of re-offending. The first few weeks after release from prison are critical.
Many prisons offer some sort of basic financial advice to help ex-offenders navigate life on the outside but recent changes mean provision can be patchy. So what can you expect? How difficult is it to get your foot back on the financial ladder with a criminal record? And could business be doing more to get ex-offenders back into employment? Also, you can work and earn a wage but where does your money go and what is there to spend it on in prison anyway?
Christopher Stacey takes part in this special Money Box phone in.
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.
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.
The way insurers lock out people with court convictions is bizarre
Mainstream home and car insurers have a blanket ban on people with unspent convictions – these kinds of policies are unfair and sometimes illegal
To many of the 1.2 million people convicted in court each year, it comes as a surprise to find that if they try to take out home insurance, or renew their existing policy, they’ll probably struggle. Every mainstream home insurer has a blanket ban on people with unspent convictions.
They say that ex-offenders are higher risk, citing vigilantism, arson and potential reoffending as some of the justifications. Many motor insurers do the same. Put simply, insurers use unspent convictions as a proxy for risk.
But research shows that those with a stable job, home and lifestyle are much less likely to reoffend. They become contributors to the system, rather than a burden. If we want people with convictions to be integrated into society, we have deal with the obstacles that stand in their way. If we would rather exclude them and treat them differently, we should not be surprised if stubbornly high reoffending rates continue to plague our failing criminal justice system.
Dubious practices
Insurers have the right to make risk judgments – they regularly load premiums for those living in high-crime areas – but their approach to criminal records is bizarre for an industry based on assessing risk. They place significant emphasis on whether a conviction is still unspent, which is determined by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.
We must learn to allow people to move on with their lives once they have paid their debt to society
This affects a lot of people. If you’re convicted of an offence and receive a fine, your conviction remains unspent for a year. And if you’re sentenced to four years or more in prison – as 7,000 people a year in the UK are – your conviction will never be spent.
Insurers are not legally allowed to consider spent convictions when they give you a quote. But it’s an arbitrary line: when it’s unspent, they refuse to quote; once it’s spent, they are not allowed to know.
Yet many insurers fail to make it clear that people don’t need to disclose spent convictions. Hidden away in Churchill’s online assumptions for home insurance, it states that you must “have never been convicted of any criminal offence (other than motoring convictions)”. This statement potentially covers the 10.5 million people in the UK that have a criminal record (excluding motoring offences). At best, this is bad practice. At worst, it’s unlawful – insurers have a legal duty to follow data protection and disclosure legislation. People with spent convictions have a legal right to access the same insurance as anybody else and insurers need to be clear with their customers about this.
Ending discrimination
This problem is not new. Nearly 12 years ago, the Guardian’s prisons correspondent Eric Allison wrote about insurance companies denying cover to ex-offenders. In research carried out by Unlock in 2010, 86% of former prisoners said it was harder to get insurance and four-fifths said that when they did get it, they were charged more. This prevents people from getting a mortgage, driving vehicles, securing employment and starting up small businesses.
Things have improved. Unlock runs an online disclosure calculator to help people work out if their convictions are still unspent. If they are unspent, it’s not impossible to get insurance – there are specialist brokers – but little competition can mean increased prices.
Critically, we have never seen any robust evidence for the claim that correlates criminal records and higher risk. Quite the opposite. The specialist brokers that work quietly behind the scenes have some of the best claims ratios of all of their customers.
Mainstream insurers must stop this discrimination. Not only would it demonstrate corporate social responsibility, but there is a strong business case for entering a market that has higher premiums and low claims ratios. They could be developing more progressive, data-driven, risk-pricing models. The Financial Conduct Authority should regard this as a market failure and raise access issues that come as a result of insurers not doing proper risk-profiling.
Ultimately, we must learn to allow people to move on with their lives once they have paid their debt to society.
More information
- This article was originally published by the Guardian on 25th February 2016. It forms part of their focus on tackling financial exclusion.
- The is more information about Unlock’s work on access to insurance here.
- For practical advice on insurance for people with convictions, visit our self-help information site.
- For guidance for insurers on dealing with criminal records, click here.
- Press/media enquiries – click here.
Breakthrough or cosmetic? Prime Minister supports ‘banning the box’
Quite understandably, David Cameron’s speech on Monday was applauded for being the first one dedicated to prison reform by a Prime Minister in over 20 years. Interestingly though, as he set out his ‘agenda for a revolution in the prison system’, one of the things that caught Unlock’s attention appeared towards the end of his speech and was not, strictly speaking, about prisons.
It was about people with criminal records applying for jobs, and the difficulties they face because of the stigma of their record.
“There’s a simple problem: today, ex-offenders are often rejected for jobs out right because of their past. I want us to build a country where the shame of prior convictions doesn’t necessarily hold them back from working and providing for their families.”
David Cameron
The Prime Minister was addressing a major social problem that affects more than the 85,000 people in prison. There are over 10 million people in the UK with a criminal record.
When you last applied for a job, can you remember whether there were boxes on the application form that you quickly ticked ‘No’ to? Well, what happens if you happen to have to tick ‘Yes’ to one? This is a concern that millions of people with criminal convictions have because many employers still continue to ask about criminal records, and ticking that box often leads to your application being put in the bin.
That’s why I welcome David Cameron’s announcement that he supports the Ban the Box campaign, with the commitment that all of the civil service would be ‘banning the box’ from their initial recruitment process.
The Ban the Box campaign, led by Business in the Community and supported by Unlock, started in America. In the two years since it was launched in the UK, 58 employers with a combined workforce of 425,000 have banned the box. This helps employers to access a huge talent pool of people that are often put off from applying due to the tick-box. It also gives people with convictions a chance to enter work – significantly reducing their likelihood of re-offending.
The civil service is one of the country’s biggest employers, so this news is a welcome boost to the employment prospects of the millions of people with a criminal record. However, in a blog post on the GOV website, Robert McNeil, the chief people officer of the Civil Service, set out some details to their approach which raises a couple of questions.
First, what jobs will it apply to? Mr McNeill says: “We recognise there may be some roles with specific security requirements and these will be exempt from this approach: for example roles in law enforcement such as prison officers.” This is unnecessary. There’s no reason why any role should be closed off to banning the box.
To suggest otherwise misunderstands the concept. It’s not about not asking about convictions; instead, it’s about when. Take the example of prison officers. Yes, they require security clearance, but this doesn’t take place at the initial application process. For regulated activity roles working with children, it might be appropriate to check that the person isn’t barred, given that those that are barred would not be legally able to be employed in the role, but that doesn’t mean asking a broad question about criminal records. Only around 0.5% of people with convictions are barred from working with children, so this wouldn’t act as a barrier for the vast majority.
Second, instead of asking on the application form, when will they ask? In his speech, David Cameron gave two potential options: ‘Might this be done a bit later, at interview stage or before an actual offer of work is made?’ he said. Mr McNeill says: ‘The Civil Service will still ask about criminal convictions during the recruitment process, but we will do this after the initial application form stage.’
Unlock suggests that employers ask after a conditional job offer is made. Employers only need to consider the criminal record of the person they decide is the best person the job.
Change of culture
These questions are important to the integrity of the ‘ban the box’ movement. Employers that have signed up so far have genuinely changed their recruitment process, and it’s been more than just about banning the box. If it’s not done right, there’s a risk that people simply get rejected further down the line.
There has to be a change of culture. Banning the box is an important practical change to a recruitment process, but it needs to be alongside a package of changes. In our work with employers, we work on a number of principles that together set employers up for a fairer and more inclusive recruitment policy and practice.
The announcement is, we hope, just the start of a process that moves the Civil Service towards being an employer that recruits people with convictions and treats criminal records fairly. With the Government’s endorsement, we hope many more employers will join the campaign and develop recruitment policies that consider whether an applicant is the best person for the job before looking at their criminal record.
Useful links
- This article was originally published on The Justice Gap.
- For more information on Ban the Box, click here.
- For more information on Unlock’s Fair Access to Employment project, click here.
Civil service to “ban the box” to help rehabilitate people with convictions
This week David Cameron unveiled a raft of prison reform measures. One of these will be to scrap the declaration of criminal convictions in the initial application stage for civil service jobs.
Responding to this announcement, Unlock’s Christopher Stacey said:
“We welcome David Camerons’ commitment to the Ban the Box campaign and in changing the recruitment practice of the Civil Service towards people with convictions.
The Civil Service represents a significant employer and this news is a welcome boost to the employment prospects of the millions of people with a criminal record.
There’s no reason why any role should be closed off to banning the box and we look forward to ensuring that the Civil Service implement the Prime Ministers’ commitment alongside a number of other measures to make it a fairer and more inclusive employer towards people with convictions.
We work closely with employers to encourage them to recruit people with convictions and deal with criminal records fairly. We look forward to working with Government, alongside BITC and others, to encourage more employers to take this proactive approach in removing the barriers people with convictions face when looking for work.”
Our quote was featured in an article in Civil Service World.
Notes to editors
- Press/media
- Unlock is an independent, award-winning charity for people with convictions which exists for two simple reasons. Firstly, we assist 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, we seek to promote a fairer and more inclusive society by challenging discriminatory practices and promoting socially just alternatives.
- Our website is unlock.devchd.com.
- David Camerons’ full speech can be read here.
- More information about Ban the Box here.
Extension of disqualifications in charities bill are unnecessary
Charities working with offenders say tougher disqualification rules are a ‘direct threat’ to their mission, and could see 50,000 people automatically banned from being trustees. Unlock comments in this Third Sector article, click here to read it in full.
