A momentous day for tens of thousands of people with old and minor criminal records

Today is a momentous day for tens of thousands of people with old and minor criminal records.  The stigma and embarrassment of a criminal record means many people simply don’t apply for jobs or voluntary roles that would require them to disclose their old and minor convictions or cautions. It’s a toxic form of punishment

What is the rationale behind the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974?

In a week where the Justice Secretary, Robert Buckland, said that he was preparing a policy that looked at making changes to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (ROA), we’re pleased to publish a paper by Dr Andrew Henley (Assistant Professor of Criminology at the University of Nottingham) on the rationale behind that piece of
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Summer 2020 Newsletter – What we’ve been up to

Today we’ve published our summer 2020 newsletter. The newsletter provides an update of the news at Unlock in the last three months. It’s sent to everyone who’s on our public mailing list, and we hope it’s a useful way of keeping up to date with what we’ve been up to. Read: Summer 2020 Newsletter  Previous

Blog – Criminal justice, racial discrimination and criminal records

In this blog, co-director Christopher Stacey shares some thoughts on the current Black Lives Matter protests, the criminal justice system, racial discrimination and the impact of criminal records. The protests and debate following the killing of George Floyd should make organisations of all shapes and sizes reflect on how they make racial justice a key

Spring 2020 Newsletter – What we’ve been up to

Today we’ve published our spring 2020 newsletter. The newsletter provides an update of the news at Unlock in the last three months. It’s sent to everyone who’s on our public mailing list, and we hope it’s a useful way of keeping up to date with what we’ve been up to. Read: Spring 2020 Newsletter  Previous

Northern Ireland makes changes to the disclosure of convictions and cautions in response to Supreme Court ruling

Yesterday, the Department of Justice (DoJ) in Northern Ireland announced it was making changes to what is disclosed on standard and enhanced criminal record checks, in response to the Supreme Court ruling in January 2019. The criminal record checking process in Northern Ireland (administered by AccessNI) is separate to that in England and Wales (administered
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Our response to Covid-19

Like every person and every organisation, we’re changing how we do things in response to the Covid-19 virus and we’ll keep this page updated with developments. In response to the government advice at the time, and in particular in advising social distancing and working from home where possible, we temporarily closed the Unlock office on

Blog – The impact of our disclosure calculator and helping the Ministry of Justice to develop one

It’s about a decade since we first started work on developing an online tool to help people work out if they need to tell employers and others about their criminal record. It was around 2009 when we started to receive an increasing number of calls to our helpline from people wanting to know if –

Help us plan our future work

As a small charity rooted in the experiences of people with a criminal record, it’s really important that our work is shaped by the needs of the people that we exist to help. We are developing our plans for Unlock’s work in the next few years. We want to make sure that they reflect what
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Interested in a funded PhD opportunity? New collaboration with The University of Nottingham

Criminal records can be a barrier to moving on in life in many ways and we often hear from people who have been rejected from university because of their past convictions, or who are put off applying for fear of rejection. Unlocking students with conviction, a year long project run by Unlock and supported by
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Blog – Join the #FairChecks movement to help get a fresh start for the criminal records system

In the 1960s, when Richard was 16, he was found in possession of a small amount of cannabis. He was prosecuted for possession and given a one-year conditional discharge. As a student a few years later, Richard got into trouble again and was convicted of taking an item of food from a warehouse where he
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Winter 2019/20 Newsletter – What we’ve been up to

Today we’ve published our winter 2019/20 newsletter. The newsletter provides an update of the news at Unlock in the last three months. It’s sent to everyone who’s on our public mailing list, and we hope it’s a useful way of keeping up to date with what we’ve been up to. Read: Winter 2019/20 Newsletter  Previous