You can see all we achieved in 2015/16 in our annual report.

Why we are here

The world is increasingly complex for anyone with a conviction. It can leave many people hopeless and despairing of ever re-building their lives. The law around disclosure is complicated and inconsistent. There are fewer and fewer sources of advice. Use – often unfair use – of the DBS is snowballing. It gets harder to maintain personal privacy in an online world. Unlock gives people practical help to deal with the everyday challenges of living with a criminal record. We also lobby for fairer systems – changes to make a big difference to many people.

What did we achieve in 2015/16?

In 2015/16 our staff of five:

• campaigned for fairer job-recruitment practices
  • we produced helpful guidance
  • we queried the use of badly-worded forms
  • we challenged employers who used  the wrong level of criminal records check
• gave information to hundreds of thousands of people via our Information Hub (nearly 900,000 unique visits).
• engaged with thousands more people with our Disclosure Calculator, Forum and e-magazine (theRecord).
• helped more than 4000 individuals to get the information and advice they needed via our Helpline.
• trained 162 professional practitioners – helping them to help others understand about criminal records.
• gave face-to-face information to dozens of people in prison.
• supported 14 volunteers (including serving prisoners) to become Helpline Assistants and gain valuable work experience.

All this has made a profound difference to individual lives.