Should criminal records be public for anyone to view?

Worked with a children's care worker once whose criminal record came to light from years ago. He was part of an armed robbery with others and his friend shot and killed someone. He was 18 at the time and on drugs. Served his time and came clean from drugs
Fast forward 25 years he turned his life around, been married 10 yrs had 4 children and was an excellent care worker. SS knew of his record and employed him as no further offences since release. But the press hounded him out of a job. So no I don't think it should be public. Some people can and do make a fresh start and should be allowed to in peace. We all make mistakes and shouldn't have to pay forever

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/vigilante-mob-attacks-home-of-paediatrician-710864.html%3famp

Presumably all those in favour of criminal records being publicly available support vigilantism and mob rule.

Does anyone remember the case of a woman being hunted down and graffiti being daubed over her house because she was thought to be a paedophile?

She wasn’t. She was a paediatrician.

dogsmother

I’m different than the most then.
If a criminal record has been created it is just that, most often a public court hearing has occurred and so it is a documented fact.
Let the truth be out there.

but can you not see how that might be abused.
and what about spent offences.

In the U.K. an employer or other person with good reason can get a CRC but not a member of the public, which I think is reasonable. You wouldn’t want an accountant who had served time for fraud, and a Single Mum might want to check her new partner out if she had children.
The US is much stricter employers cannot ask about convictions at all, no doubt ways are found and a continuous employment and references tell the story.

Our notions and systems of justice in all of Europe are based on the principle that once someone has been convicted and accepted punishment for a crime it is over and done with, and they can return to society as useful members of it.

That being so, obviously criminal records cannot be made public.

No-one wants to live near a rapist or child-abuser, obviously, but how would any of us who are not trained to evalute them know whether the person was likely to commit a similar offence again, or had realised that it was wrong.

I’m different than the most then.
If a criminal record has been created it is just that, most often a public court hearing has occurred and so it is a documented fact.
Let the truth be out there.

Daftbag that is shocking and the HR officer should have had the sack.

greengreengrass

Link on Clare's law. That is how the police spell it...

www.gov.uk/government/news/clares-law-to-become-a-national-scheme

Exactly

That's a dreadful thing to have happened Daftbag1, I'm not at all surprised that your DH was very upset. I'm the person responsible for arranging the Basic DBS check at the company I work for and, as you quite rightly say, there is a stringent code of conduct which seems to have made a vast improvement on the experience that your DH had. All applications are done online now and the employee is sent a url link, along with a one time code, that only they have access to, to enable them to complete the application. They can choose whether to have the certificate posted, emailed or available as an online certificate. Whichever method they choose, we only ask that they bring a copy of it into work so that we can check it. That copy must be stored in a lockable, fire proof cabinet. The copy is returned to the employee if/when they leave our employment.

No, no, no!

Even work places should have to account for how they manage DBS records. Policies are already required to be in place, sadly despite this, some organisations lack integrity and confidentiality.

I know of one gent who had been working for an organisation for several years with no complaint. This organisation made a decision to undertake CRB checks on all resident staff. This gent was somewhat anxious at this as he had had a quite colourful past as a youth. Reassured that his report would not fall into the wrong hands, as requested he completed the form filling.

In due course, his report was returned, several pages in fact, as expected listing all of his criminal history, all prior to his 20th birthday. This criminal record dated to the 60's, (checked in 2011), so irrelevant.

About 3 weeks later, he entered the staff kitchen to find a group of staff discussing in detail his CRB report, shared by the HR officer. I can't describe how upset he was, and his trust in the organisation went out of the window at that minute.

It was my husband. Yes he was an idiot as a teenager, but that all ended with the birth of h I s oldest son.

This situation with his employers was completely unacceptable, and he did receive a letter of apology but things were never the same.

Link on Clare's law. That is how the police spell it...

www.gov.uk/government/news/clares-law-to-become-a-national-scheme

I didn't. Don't twist my words. I asked the question. Nothing wrong with that, not sure why someone picking hairs about the spelling of Claires law would find that more important than the law itself.

Nonsense.

Newatthis
As most sex offenders are never prosecuted, or even found out, then knowing the criminal background of anyone found guilty of a crime would be just the tip of the iceberg anyway.

There should be more vigorous pursuit of such as your neighbour and such paedophiles as he should be on the Sex Offenders' Register.

What a sick society Newatthis.

If a DBS is needed for their job any offences will be recorded - most employers will overlook minor ones if they are not relevant to the type of employment. There is no reason for them to be in the public domain -can you imagine al th nosey neighbours checking up on prople!! If anyone has concerns about s neighbour or someone they are involved with. They should contact the local police who can check the Police National Computer. If there are children around it is a good idea to check with the police anyone who becomes involved with the family. There are lots of sex offenders living in the community - best to check out anyone who becomes involved. Sex offenders often groom children by becoming friendly with parents/family.

July 2018 1,223 sex offenders 'register indefinitely' applied to be removed and have been successful. More than half had committed offences against children.
New DBS checks will not pick these people up. Scary thought.

17-sex-offenders-in-cumbria-removed-from-sex-offenders-register ITV.com

NO criminal records should not be made public. A person is entitled to turn their life around without having to pay for a crime the rest of their life. The DBS has all crimes recorded on it which is unfair, because it will prejudice that job applicant from obtaining employment even when their crime was committed a long time ago. It is becoming too much of a surveillance society. Now people in choirs or drama groups sometimes have to supply a DBS. Why!! If they are not teaching or training children or vulnerable people let the past remain in the past!

we are probably ll living a lot nearer to sex offenders than we realise.
and any official list will only cover those who have been exposed and successfully convicted.
thinking of another thread, look at how widespread sexual harassment is.

And the little girls he abused were too afraid to testify

Having lived next door to a paedophile for two years without knowing it I think I might of liked that information. Because he was never caught it wasn’t on any list. He still out there because they didn’t have sufficient information to prosecute because he dumped his computer with all the evidence on.

Yes, it's unfortunate when the wrong man is sought but the problem here is that paedophiles are released into the community on release from prison and when a person has been imprisoned and word gets around-----because they don't know why he/she was sentenced, it's naturally assumed in this climate, that he'd been there as a child abuser, particularly if the sentence had been a short one.

Nobody knows if they have a paedophile living near them. Is this right or not ?

That's awful Chewbacca.

Last weekend, a group of men from the nearest town to where I live, set up a sting to catch a man they suspected of being a convicted paedophile and of continuing his activities. They beat him up and then called the police to come and take him away. It's now become known that, whilst he was a convicted criminal, none of his crimes included children or any sexual crimes. Pity they didn't check the on line database first.

Marydoll & Missfoodlove.
You have both hit the nail firmly on the head.