October

"More than a third of men and almost one in ten women in Scotland are likely to have at least one criminal conviction, according to a new report. The figures were revealed in a research paper examining changes to the law governing when criminal convictions are considered spent. In was produced in response to a Scottish Government consultation on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (1974) to be launched this summer. The act has been criticised for not achieving the right balance between protecting the public and allowing people to put their previous offending behaviour behind them and get back into employment. Concerns have been raised that rehabilitation periods set out in law are too long and offenders face stigma while waiting for a criminal record to expire. Disclosure Scotland processes more than one million applications for basic disclosure of criminal convictions every year. A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: ""The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 has been on the statue books for nearly 40 years and it is important to ensure the legislation still operates in line with its original purposes of balancing the need to protect the public whilst allowing ex-offenders to be rehabilitated from their previous offending behaviour."""

"DBS will filter certain old and minor cautions and convictions, reprimands and warnings from criminal record certificates. The DBS will be removing certain specified old and minor offences from criminal record certificates issued from the 29 May 2013. Changes to the legislation were introduced to allow us to do this. The filtering rules and the list of offences that will never be filtered are now available for you to view. In line with these changes, we have provided clarification on how to interpret question e55 on our DBS application form for a criminal record check. To follow the law correctly, we need Registered Bodies to bring this change to the applicants' attention when completing the DBS application form. Question e55 asks the applicant ""have you ever been convicted of a criminal offence or received a caution, reprimand or warning?"" Applicants should now ignore this question and treat this question as if they were being asked, ""Do you have any convictions, cautions, reprimands or final warnings which would not be filtered in line with current guidance?"""

"A temporary recruitment agency has been launched to help provide temporary employment opportunities for prisoners upon their release. Established by Kate Beech, who has 20 years' experience in recruitment, and Her Majesty's Prison (HMP) Featherstone, the new company Chance (2013) Ltd. aims to support former prisoners into work. Beech said the level of skill and qualifications of many of the prisoners was often ignored due to their criminal background. During their time in prison, however, she said many of them had developed a strong desire to work and even in some cases start a new career. For some, they want to return to the jobs they successfully held before being convicted. ""The relationship between [the] staff at Chance and [the] prisoners is built up over the final three months of their sentence so we are confident we [can] place them with the appropriate employer and within the right industry,"" said Beech. She adds: ""This recruitment process means they will come out paying National Insurance and paying their own rent rather than relying on benefits until they find a job which may never happen on their own."" Beech is also working with charities and rehabilitation groups to offer general support to the prisoners when they are released. "