Transforming Public Opinion
Successfully reintegrating offenders into society is the goal for Transforming Rehabilitation, but our society demonizes offenders and wants to punish them some more upon release, our attitude is summed up in the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act. I know of a person whose last employer will not provide them with a reference, despite years of good service, and the offence being unconnected with employment. This is legal and probably typical.
Can we change our attitude? Fifty years ago I was in secondary school, back then homosexuality was “The love that dare not speak its name”, there were 20,000 men in prison, 1,500 of whom were homosexuals expected to change their sexual orientation in an all male environment. In my school anyway, you were encouraged to write something controversial in your essay and support it with evidence. For my art history essay I wrote Michael Angelo was a homosexual supported by lots of evidence from his work. I was threatened with being in serious trouble if I dared to write something like that again. Then homosexuals were barred from teaching, I asked my parents why? “They might interfere with the boys” I was told, “but heterosexuals might interfere with the girls”, “That's different”, “Why?” There was no answer because there is no answer that's logical.
In fifty years we have almost but not quite changed society's attitude to homosexuality. Until recently anthropological studies that revealed that other species engaged in homosexuality were suppressed. Very recently the book “Tango makes three” the story of a couple of homosexual penguins who successfully reared an adopted egg in a New York zoo was banned from libraries as unsuitable for children to read.
Can we change our society's attitude to criminals, my answer is “Yes”, but it will take time. Meanwhile countries that we would think are less enlightened than us are getting ahead. Singapore has its Yellow Ribbon Project. Started by CARE, Community Action for Rehabilitation of Ex-offenders, the project supports its objective of the successful re-integration into the community by making the public aware of the problems faced by ex-offenders. Ninety percent of the population know of it, sixty percent support it, 1,700 employers have signed up not to discriminate against people with convictions.
Turkey has a different approach an employer with more than 50 employees must have one with a criminal record or pay a fine which goes towards vocational training of offenders. Norway treats discrimination against criminal convictions similarly to discrimination against disability. Whilst here a lady who punched a girl in a party as a teen will always have this disclosed under the enhanced DBS check, eighty percent of employers will automatically bar her. A nineteen year old boy who received an up skirt photograph from his seventeen year old girl friend has a conviction for storing an indecent image of a child (strangely it would have been legal if they were married) he will most likely never get a job requiring an enhanced DBS check. If we want to transform rehabilitation, we must start by transforming the public perception of people with criminal records first, the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act will follow public opinion.
Rhys Toogood
No this government will not follow public opinion. Despite many calling for changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act it has hardly changed. Both the UK and USA keep offenders / ex-offenders on the fringe of society even when offences were committed many years ago. The police even have a policy of keeping arrests on record that did not result in either charge or conviction. These can be disclosed on criminal record checks so people also end up being barred from employment for offences they were not convicted of. Lifetime sex offender registration is another area that is unjust in many cases. You'd think the probation service, unions, institute would have something to say about this, but they don't!
ReplyDeleteTR was never about reintegrating offenders into society it was about the first phase of the privatisation of the probation service and the artificial creation of a market. There are lots of things the government could do to help those including those involved in rehabilitation to reintegrate offenders but it suits them to demonise offenders as others.
ReplyDeleteThe voices that want to make a pathway for reintegration and room for redemption do not make themselves heard very often in the political clamour for power, it is not very populist. Was David Cameron making an effort when he wanted to talk about seeing prisoners as assets rather than the other? Do our prisons need to be more open to the community so that reintegration can be supported? If so I guess that employers, employment agencies, training providers along with a range of other community services and resources would potentially have something more to offer in a prison establishment if they were more accessible. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, whilst it offers some safeguards for those who have offended always struck me as over the top. Ex - offenders have to travel an awful long road before there convictions are spent and presents as a significant obstacle to their integration I am sure. Certainly it is overdue for an informed and holistic re - think.
ReplyDeleteI dont think any of the poltical parties have ever got this issue of rehabilitation right. I have had to declare mine since the 1980's and not only is it embarrassing and shameful but humiliating. It's rubbish to say their 'spent' nothing is spent when you have a criminal background. All these years on turning your life around means nothing when you hear the dreaded words 'Enhanced DBS check' because you instinctively know 'here we go again' explaining our pasts again and again. Yes we have behaved and done things most of us utterly regret but do we have to pay for the rest of our lives, yes we do! This is the long term punishment that too often goes un-noticed.
ReplyDeleteI know the feeling. I've been disclosing mine for the past 20 years. It never gets easier and it's really annoying that a few silly acts during a single wayward year as a schoolboy have followed me around my whole life. 20 years on and eyebrows are still raised, there's jobs I'll never get and even countries I'll never visit.
DeleteIf you've never read Beth Weaver's Eurovista 3:1 it's definitely worth a read if you're interested in real accounts of living with a criminal record. There's a few accounts from probation, social work and justice professionals too.
http://www.euro-vista.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/EuroVista-vol3-no1-complete1.pdf
I totally agree with what has been said above and I witness the demoralising impact it has on people who genuinely want to put the past, in the past, everyday! People who have been applying for work daily for months and years, get dragged over the coals by JC+ staff, as they immediately assume no effort is being made and never, never, see the opportunities of the job market as only being open to the few or that they are part of the system whilst continues to punish people in the community!
ReplyDeleteIs it me or are indefinite shpo's nothing short of a job creation scheme? Courts rarely limit the period of time in which they apply and if you want to get it changed, ie as a 19 year old, your convicted of inciting a 15 year old child into sexual activity....that child having been in a relationship with him for sometime. At 29 he can apply to the court for the sopo to be removed but he's unlikely to get legal aid,and if it remains in place, it impacts on his ability to get work, and on decisions he may make about becoming a parent! Catch 22 position, damned if you do, damned if you don't.
ReplyDeleteConstant 're-hashing' of 19th century social political ideology of the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' members of society - typical conservative mind-speak.Roll-back to the 19th century Poor Laws?
ReplyDeleteIts not only employment, people with convictions in our area are 'barred' from bidding for local authority housing unless they've been offence free for three years-it also affects private landlords who are in the local authority scheme. (housing officers have also expressed frustration at this) Two significant 'needs', housing and employment (or even getting a bank account without lots of back up support) are withheld for those leaving prison.
ReplyDeleteOne of my chaps convicted of sexually motivated offences whose been living quietly and anonymously in his flat for a couple of years is now on reduced housing benefit as he's expected to live in shared accom as he's under 35. We are looking into challenging this but he'll have to disclose why he can't just share a flat with anyone. He says he's so used now to everyone knowing his private business its almost stopped affecting him. (...but I think he's lying here..)
ReplyDeleteShared accommodation rate should not be applied for over 25's under MAPPA. Every council has a Housing Benefit Allowance, the maximum rent they will allow for rented accommodation in a district. In many places there will be no property available to rent for that sum. You may apply for a discretionary payment to bridge that gap. Talking to Housing Officers with many years of service none can remember any discretionary grants being given. However for MAPPA level two and three there is an exception, no one wants them sleeping rough, the council have a duty to cooperate with MAPPA this can lead to a discretionary grant sufficient to give the applicant a choice of five or six properties above the housing benefit allowance.
DeleteI know by hearsay of one SO who put a holding deposit on a house to rent. MAPPA or more exactly probation refused permission to live there because there was already another SO living on that street and the deposit was lost.
There is a Single Point of Contact in the local authority, the District Auditor. He can authorise but not activate a change, at a minimum the head of Housing Benefits will be involved. The data protection act should give you all the anonymity you need.