The Graduate’s Perspective
Under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, certain occupations require all convictions to be declared, irrespective of whether they are spent under the terms of the Act or not. An application form for a position excepted from the Act should always make this point quite clear.
To find out if you need to disclose your criminal conviction, check out the legal requirements. Current legislation relevant to this is the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 which enables certain criminal convictions to become ‘spent’ or ignored after a specified period of time. This means you are under no legal obligation to disclose your conviction after the required period of time. See the resource section for further details.
When disclosing a conviction it is important to present yourself in a positive light. It is a good idea to provide an explanation of the circumstances that influenced the offence that no longer apply (eg financial difficulties) and also to outline factors that minimise the impact of the offence (eg it was many years ago).
Promote your abilities to do the job by highlighting your relevant skills and experience. Try to convince the employer that there it is not a risk to employ you. This is particularly effective when the job is not related to the offence. Focus on positive aspects – show what you have gained from previous experiences and highlight your achievements since the conviction. It is important that you do not permit the offence to dominate your application form.
You also need to decide at what stage of the application process you will disclose your conviction. This is a personal choice and depends on the job you are applying for, the application process and the type of conviction.
It has been estimated that a fifth of the working population has a criminal record – this is a significant part of the potential workforce. Getting a job is an important part of successful individual rehabilitation. Failure to get paid employment has been identified as a major reason for re-offending, but a criminal offence can be a significant deterrent to an employer. However, the majority of ex-offenders in work are competent and reliable and pose no risk to their colleagues, clients or the business they work for.
Asking for disclosure of convictions previously was not part of standard recruitment practice for many organisations. However, the introduction of Standard and Enhanced Disclosures has led to an increased number of employers asking about criminal records. When the Basic Disclosure check comes into effect there will be a huge increase in employers asking about records.
This Act allows criminal convictions to be ignored or be considered ‘spent’ after a period of rehabilitation. A ‘spent’ conviction does not have to be declared and cannot be proper grounds for dismissal or prejudicial treatment in employment. After the rehabilitative period has elapsed, with some exceptions, an ex-offender does not usually have to mention a conviction when applying for a job. When asked about previous convictions the individual can answer ‘no’ if the convictions are spent and the job applied for is not excepted from the Act. Broadly, the rehabilitative period for a sentence of up to six months is seven years, and for a sentence between six months and two and a half years is ten years.
Any offence carrying a sentence of more than two and a half years in prison is never spent. Some occupations require all convictions to be declared, irrespective of whether they are spent under the terms of the Act. People with convictions are still able to apply for jobs in these areas, but employers will take the information into account and some areas of employment will not be open to individuals with certain convictions. Broadly, the following occupations are excepted from the Act:
Part 5 of the Police Act:
Anyone needing to make Standard or Enhanced Disclosure checks has to become a registered body with the Criminal Records Bureau. Alternatively, they can make checks through a registered umbrella organisation. Registered bodies sign up to a strict code of practice.
The Standard Disclosure covers posts excepted from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. The Disclosure shows spent and unspent convictions and also cautions, reprimands and final warnings held on the police national computer. It says if there is no record. The Disclosure is issued to individuals and copied to the employer or other body registered to receive this information.
The Enhanced Disclosure covers positions involving regular care of, training, supervising or being in sole charge of children or vulnerable adults. It also covers doctors, dentists, pharmacists and opticians. The Disclosure shows the same details as a Standard Disclosure and occasionally it may also show non- conviction information from local police records, which a chief police officer feels is relevant to a certain type of employment. It also says if there is no record.
It is usually recommended that you should avoid making reference to a conviction in your CV but cover it in a positive way towards the end of a covering letter.
This link shows an example of a really good covering letter for a student with a previous conviction:
http://www.wmin.ac.uk/pdf/coveringLetterstudent_previous_conviction.pdf
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