Disclosure
Disclosure
- Evidence indicates that anticipated stigma and the repeated encountering of obstacles to obtaining employment can increase risk of reoffending, undermining desistance. If employment can support desistance and reintegration, this would suggest that public protection is increased rather than risked when barriers to employment are removed
- Underpinning much of the uncertainty around the recruitment of people with convictions is the lack of clarity as to when past convictions come to be of little or no value in the prediction of criminality, when taking into account information that is self-disclosed or revealed through formal mechanisms of disclosure
- Research reveals a complex relationship between (un)employment, offending and desistance but it is generally acknowledged that employment is key to desistance and reintegration (Weaver, 2015; Weaver, 2018). However, it‘s not as straightforward as getting a job and giving up crime. This is because employment in and of itself does not cause or trigger desistance; rather it is the meaning and outcomes of either the nature and/or quality of the work or participation in employment and how these impact on people’s personal priorities or goals, their self-concept and social identity (how it changes the way the person sees themself and is seen by others) and the relationships that matter to them
- ‘Time to Redemption’ studies estimate that in general after an average of 7-10 years without a new arrest or conviction, a person’s criminal record essentially loses its predictive value
- an excessively wide and complex disclosure system may actually undermine prospects for reintegration
- Management of Offenders Bill do not go far enough because they do not address their intended purposes: reducing unnecessary barriers to employment for people with convictions while promoting the protection of vulnerable groups.
- We support the development of an individualised and nuanced approach to the disclosure of all spent convictions, including (and especially) those accrued in childhood.