The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act is not fit for purpose

On February 23rd I shall be trying, for the fourth time, to persuade the government that the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (ROA) 1974, in its present form, is not fit for purpose, by means of a Private Member’s Bill. My Bill proposes that the name of the Act be changed to Criminal Records, because it is solely about them, and it is misleading to suggest that it has anything to do with the process of rehabilitating offenders. The ROA specifies the length of time for convictions to become ‘spent’, meaning that they no longer have to be declared. It also specifies certain exceptions, such as employment that involves contact with children or vulnerable adults.

The ROA has long been criticised, particularly for the length of the periods of obligatory disclosure, and that sentences of over 48 months can never become spent. The then Labour government published a report entitled Breaking the Circle in 2002, arguing that the Act was no longer wholly effective, and was not achieving the right balance between resettlement and protection. However, no action was taken following the consultation that followed the report.

The Coalition government then published a second report, Breaking the Cycle, in 2010, admitting that the Act was overly complex and confusing, was inconsistent with contemporary sentencing practice, and was failing in its aim of helping reformed offenders resettle into society largely because its rehabilitation periods were too long. However, it was not until the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 that any action was taken to amend the Act, and then with only two amendments.

Since then, five separate organisations or individuals have drawn attention to the inadequacy of current arrangements. First, the Standing Committee on Youth Justice published a report in March 2016 entitled Growing Up, Moving On, which listed how other countries handled childhood Criminal Records, and pointed out how draconian we were in comparison. Secondly the Law Commission was asked by the Home Office to conduct a review of the filtering process that was introduced in 2013, as part of a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS). In its report, published in April 2017, it concluded that there was a compelling case for a wider review of the disclosure system as a whole, which should include an update of the legislation in which it was contained.

Thirdly the Justice Select Committee followed up its outstanding report on young adults in the Criminal Justice System, with a report on the Disclosure of Youth Criminal Records, to which the government has just published a disappointingly negative response. Rather than reform the present unsatisfactory situation, it is waiting for a Supreme Court ruling on its appeal against a Court of Appeal decision that the current scheme is incompatible with Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Fourthly David Lammy MP, in his review of the treatment of BAME individuals in the Criminal Justice System, said that the current criminal records regime did not help offenders ‘start new lives’. Finally, Christopher Stacey, Chief Executive of UNLOCK, the National Association of ex-offenders, has pointed out that, because the number of exceptions was growing, people with old convictions were consigned to an increasingly narrow range of employment and educational opportunities.

If the government is really serious about the rehabilitation of offenders, which I presume that it is following two Rehabilitation Revolutions, it must examine everything that is preventing it from achieving its objective, including the ROA. I hope that, this time, the response to my Bill will be the announcement of a full revision of the Criminal Records regime.

Crossbench peer Lord Ramsbotham was Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales from 1995-2001

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