As part of our policy & campaign work, we’re always looking for examples and experiences that provide evidence of the problems that people with convictions are facing.

This is where we need your help, so that we can better challenge unfair policies and practices.

Details of what we do with your experiences and evidence are at the bottom of this page.

Current issues that we’re looking for experiences and evidence on

We focus on specific issues that we’re proactively seeking to get experiences and evidence on. These include (click the links for more detail on each):

1. Has an employer wrongly checked your official criminal record? Get in touch

2. Where the DBS filtering process doesn’t go far enough

3. Bad policies and practices by employers

4. Has your criminal record had an impact on social housing?

5. Spent convictions still on your DVLA record – Is this causing you a problem?

6. Are Google (and other search engines) de-listing results of people with spent convictions?

7. Trustee or senior manager of a charity and have convictions? Are you affected by the Charities Act 2016?

8. Are you affected by the online publication of your spent convictions?

9. Are you transgender? And do you have a gender-specific criminal record that reveals your previous gender?

There may also be occasions where we run one-off surveys to gather experiences and evidence on particular issues. If you want to be involved of new opportunities, you can sign up to our mailing list.

Send us your experiences and evidence

Please send us your experiences and evidence….

• If you’ve got experience or evidence relating to any of these issues or those above, or
• If you’ve received something from us asking for your personal experiences about a particular issue, or
• If you have evidence of any other issues that you think we’d be interested in as part of our policy & campaign work

By evidence, we mean things that show the problem you’ve faced. This will vary depending on the case. On particular issues, we’ll normally specify the types of things we’re looking for, but it will often involve things like:

1. 1. Details of your criminal record
   2. Details of the problem you had
   3. The impact that this problem had on you
   4. Any evidence that you’ve got to back this up (e.g. copies of your criminal record, letters/emails with employers/insurers and others)

Send your experiences and evidence:

1. By completing an online form: We have this form, and occasionally set up specific forms for specific issues
2. By email to: policy@unlock.org.uk
3. By post to: Policy, Unlock, MCSC, 39-48 Marsham Street, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1HH (please do not send originals)

Please note: Sending us your experiences and evidence in this way helps us in our policy work. If you’re looking for advice on your situation, please contact our helpline.

What we do with your experiences and evidence

Experiences and evidence that we receive helps to inform our policy work. This includes helping us to better understand the issues that people are facing, as well as helping us to work out what potential solutions there could be. In some cases, we may draw together evidence to submit a report to the body responsible for the issue. Or, we may take a particular case and seek legal advice to see whether the problem can be challenged legally.

However, one thing that stays the same is the principle that applies to all the experiences and evidence that we receive;

All personally-identifiable evidence that is submitted to us is handled confidentially. We do not share personal details to any third-parties without the explicit consent of the person concerned.

We are used to dealing with individuals who are quite rightly very protective about their personal data. We take our role of protecting confidentiality very seriously.

However, for us to perform our role of challenging prejudice, discrimination and unfairness, as well as showing what people can and do go on to achieve, we may anonymise details that we receive, to then use in the course of our work. This anonymous data may form part of a policy report, a case study on one of our websites, or when working with another organisation. In any of these situations, we will not share any personally-identifiable data without your explicit consent, in line with our data protection policy.

Find out more about how we handle your data.

We’re sorry, but we cannot guarantee to reply!

This work is part of our policy and campaign work. That means that we can’t respond to all of the evidence that we receive.

We consider all evidence that is sent to us. However, we’ll normally only be able to respond if we need to clarify something that you’ve sent us, or if the issue links in with some work we’re doing and we’d like you to be involved in some way.

If you’re looking for advice on your situation, you should read the relevant section on our information hub, and if you still have questions, you can contact our helpline.