News

'Irrelevant' criminal record checks harm job hopes

Sunday, 26 November 2017

Our forthcoming briefing on criminal record checks is covered in this morning's Observer newspaper.

Out of a total of 4.2 million requests for disclosure of criminal records in 2015, the paper reports, only six percent produced any criminal record information. This involved 1,020,111 recorded convictions. Of these, some three quarters – 742,482 – dated back a decade or more.

Our Research Director Roger Grimshaw, who authored the briefing, told the paper:

We were really struck that hundreds of thousands of disclosures related to historic offences. A lot can change in a decade or more. It’s important that mistakes of the distant past do not prejudice people’s chances of employment and rehabilitation.

The briefing, Criminal record checks: is the volume of disclosures proportionate?, is due out in early December.