A recent survey by the Recruitment and Employment Confederation (REC), shows that many employers have concerns about the potential for re-offending among candidates with criminal records. The study showed that as many as 60% of employers had concerns that employees who had been in trouble with the police may re-offend, and 66% of employers expressed worries regarding the safety of their existing staff members. The REC is campaigning for a more open-minded approach toward the large number of individuals in the UK with criminal records, many of whom have not served prison sentences. Many people who have been in trouble with the law many years previously are put off from applying for jobs which require a DBS check, as they do not understand what will and will not be disclosed on the three different levels of check.
Research has also shown that 40% of people who have convictions in their past are confused about the system for convictions becoming spent, and what they are legally obliged to disclose to a future employer. They are also unsure about what will be shown on a disclosure certificate which an employer may ask for as part of the recruitment process.
Changing Attitudes to Ex-Offenders
Despite concerns in general about employing people who have a criminal history, there appears to be a shifting attitude. This is evidenced by research from Working Chance, an employment charity for women with convictions. Their findings indicated that 45% of employers would consider hiring candidates with past convictions in 2022, up from just 25% in 2010. Although the picture is improving, this is not the full picture. Only 15% of hiring managers said they had a formal company policy against hiring individuals with past convictions, 30% admitted they would automatically reject a candidate upon disclosure of such information. Some employers were not just concerned about the conviction itself and were concerned that having spent time in prison out of the workforce would mean that people’s skills were not up to date.
Dealing With Past Offences
If you know that you have offences on your past record, your first job is to understand when these offences will be spent. There are lots of websites to help with this, and it will depend on how old you were at the time, and the nature of the offence. As far as DBS checks are concerned, there is a separate process called filtering which applies to standard and enhanced DBS checks. This means the police will look at the older and least relevant convictions or cautions and decide whether to disclose them or not. In many cases, especially with matters which are very old or minor, the police will choose not to tell your employer about them.
Finally, the good news is that the picture is gradually changing when it comes to acceptance of ex-offenders in the workplace. If you can prove that you have kept a clean record since the offences were committed, you are still in a very good position to receive a job offer.
