How May Having a Criminal Record Affect Your Life?
There are various ways that having a criminal record may impact upon your life in the UK. It could be that you are not able to apply for certain jobs, or you can’t obtain a visa to visit specific countries. If you would like to find out more information about this, continue to read the article below.
How your criminal record affects you may also depend on the type of offence and how long ago it took place, whether it was minor, or you served many years in prison as a result.
Future Job Prospects
Most jobs nowadays, as part of the recruitment procedure, require you to complete a DBS check. Depending on the type of role you are applying for, and whether you’ll be working with children or vulnerable adults, will determine whether you need to apply for a Basic, Standard or Enhanced DBS check. Whether your conviction is ‘spent’ can make a difference. If you commit a crime that means you are given a prison sentence of more than 4 years, it will never be spent. If you get a prison sentence of 6 months or less, that will be spent 2 years after you have finished serving the sentence. A prison sentence between 6 months and 4 years is spent 4-7 years after the sentence. So, how long a criminal sentence lasts for depends on your sentence. If you have been placed on barred lists, you won’t ever be able to work with children or vulnerable adults.
If you have a criminal record, you can apply for jobs that are covered by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) and for these jobs you do not have to declare spent convictions.
Higher Education Offers
When you apply to university you may be asked to disclose unspent convictions. Universities obviously need to ensure that students attending there are kept safe, and some courses require students to go on placements too. If you have a minor conviction such as a motoring offence, this may not have an impact, but a violent or sexual offence could prevent you from being accepted. If you had a serious drink driving conviction or dangerous driving conviction these also would show up on DBS checks and may prevent you being accepted at a university.
Travel
If you have a criminal conviction and wish to visit places such as USA, Australia, and Canada, then the immigration authorities will see the crime on your criminal record check and may decide to decline your visa.
Adoption
If you wish to adopt a child, it may be difficult or impossible depending on the offences you have committed.
You May not be an MP or Councillor
If you wanted to stand for election, parliament or to be a member of a local council, then unspent convictions appearing on a DBS check would prevent you from doing this.
Volunteer Work
Depending on the type of volunteer work; having unspent convictions could prevent you from becoming a volunteer.
Insurance Policies
On many insurance applications you need to declare what unspent convictions you have, and if you failed to do this, it would invalidate your insurance claim.
To summarise, having a criminal record can impact your life, long after the time that you committed the crime, for a range of things that you didn’t realise, such as travel, employment, insurance, and adoption. You can do a Basic DBS check as an individual to determine whether a past conviction is now spent (as a Basic DBS will show any convictions and cautions that are unspent).
