22 January 2016
Today, the High Court ruled that excessive disclosure of minor historical criminal convictions in England and Wales is unlawful under Article 8 of the Human Rights Act, the right to a private and family life.
The filtering system used by the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) in England and Wales only allows the filtering of one minor conviction for higher level disclosure checks (for jobs which are not protected under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act) after a number of years.
In Scotland new provisions to create protected convictions were implemented on 10 September 2015. http://recruitwithconviction.org.uk/protected_convictions_in_scotland/ The Scottish system permits more than 1 minor conviction to be removed from higher level checks after a number of years as well as an appeals process. The failure of the DBS system to filter more than one conviction or allow an appeal, appears to be the basis of the legal challenge.
Why protect more than one conviction? Quite simply, there is no evidence that minor historic convictions link to current offending behaviour but there is significant evidence to show that minor historical convictions are linked with low pay and unemployment in the long term.
This is particularly true for women with convictions, where their median income is less than half the median income of a 24 year old, eight years after their conviction. This is excessive in comparison to the gender pay gap.
When convictions combine with protected characteristics then recruiters and selectors often have to overcome their unconscious bias about “someone who does not look like me or sound like me”. Throwing historical convictions into the mix, allows selectors to reinforce or justify stereotyping and it has a multiplying effect of disadvantage.
The more often that a person receives or perceives discrimination, the more likely they are to mistrust disclosure processes and deselect themselves from opportunities in the future.
People with convictions become anxious about disclosing to anyone and surely after a number of years they have a right to privacy about their past.
In practical terms, nothing has changed in England and Wales yet and the Government can still appeal against the ruling.
See also