In these days of criminal record searches and the slow and unplanned death of the old Rehabilitation of Offenders' principles, a criminal conviction can now have devastating and long-lasting effects. A drug conviction, for as little as one spliff, can disqualify the offender from most jobs that require a security clearance, such as working at an airport or on the railways. You have to declare criminal convictions to an insurer, and may then be refused cover, or offered a restricted version at best.
So it was sad today to have to sentence a 50-something year-old man of previously good character who had succumbed to temptation by stealing from someone who trusted him. He produced a thick sheaf of character references , and his close family all came to sit in the gallery to support him.
In formulating the court's pronouncement we took care to avoid excusing or making light of the dishonesty involved, but we expressed our view that it is a terrible thing for a man who has gone through life honestly to have to admit to his family that he had been dishonest. He must have gone through hell, but his woes were self-inflicted.
I can't say much more, but it is safe to say that his guilty plea pushed the sentence down by a level or two.
Yesterday we dealt with a young woman who was caught, after the execution of a search warrant, growing just over 20 cannabis plants. See claimed she had been forced into it as she owed her dealer money she couldn't pay. She was of previous good character.
ReplyDeleteIn her mitigation her lawyer showed us a contract of employment she had just been sent for a low level job in a very well known company, she was due to start this week. On one of the pages I spotted that she was required to notify them of any criminal convictions and, if any, they reserved the right to withdraw the job.
We dealt with her according to the guidelines and the pre-sentence report, with a community penalty. That's probably the end of the first job she had secured. Was it self inflicted? Some might say no if she was forced into the offence but as she claimed that was only to pay her dealer, in my opinion yes it was self inflicted.
I really don't think people understand the true and long lived consequences of a criminal conviction.
The real tragedy of your story is that cannabis should in fact be legal. Alcohol is far more damaging, but as the UK is a vassal client state of the USA, doubtless you will continue to follow these foolish rules than do what is right.
DeleteIt is also a terrible thing for the victims of these crimes. Trusting someone and then having that trust destroyed in this way is deeply distressing. I have dealt with many victims of this type of crime who blame themselves for what happened, believing they were stupid or foolish to have been deceived. This is really a lose / lose situation for both parties.
ReplyDeleteI can only say that I fully agree with the sentiments set out above. Rehabilitation and reform should be the top of the agenda once someone has paid the price for their crime. This is particularly important when an offender can be dealt with totally differently in different parts of the country. What is more a minor slip or loss of control which leads to a minor offence is absolutely no indicator of future conduct. In fact having been through the mill many never trouble the courts again.
ReplyDeleteIt is frigtening that convictons for minor matters can have such a disproportionate effect on a persons life. That effect is magnified significantly if you come from a working class backgrouns rather than one of the higher classes. ( i hate to characterise people like this but its true).
It is now about time that that minor matters are totally wiped off the record after an appropriate time, say 21. At least that would give someone a chance to get a foot on the greasy pole and would give the nation a bigger pool of talent which is now just wasted.
I don't know many Magistrates, judges, lawyers or ordinary people who would disagree with this. It would only apply to relatively minor matters and would not assist the repeat offender who would never stop offending long enough to gain the benefit of proper rehabilitation.
The current situation is plainly mad!
And where is the consistency when a cultivator of 50 plants receives a police caution as happened in my area recently ?
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that the police gives cautions when clearly they shouldn't. For 50 plants a court would have been looking at a community penalty, at least. I am also seeing an increasing number of people with, in one case recently a dozen bags of cannabis and more than that of class A but only charged with possession. I presume the CPS thought it easier (cheaper) to get a guilty plea on that, than have an intent to supply trial.
DeleteThat's an issue of police powers and the appropriate use of the caution, not sentencing consistency though.
DeleteI agree with the disproportionate harm caused by a minor conviction.
ReplyDeleteOnce convicted you will fail CRB checks which precludes a lot of jobs; you will fail security vetting which precludes a lot of other jobs, and you will be ineligible for travel to the USA or Canada for business purposes (sans a special visa) which would make many "middle class " type jobs closed to you.
If you're a "professional" you must report any conviction to your professional body. For example doctors and dentists must report convictions to the GMC or GDC respectively and risk being struck off.
"Accepting a caution" is in actually worse. The reporting requirements are all the same and "rehabilitation of offenders" does not apply - it's a millstone for life. Even a "reprimand" by a police officer will come up on a CRB check.
But on the flip side we have the rise and rise of the "civil penalty" which allows misconduct to be disposed off outside the courts and with no stain on the character.
A few months ago I had a discussion with some young lads on a train who were bragging about the fact that they did not have tickets. I told them that they could get a criminal record and that this could affect the rest of their lives. No problem they said, it all gets wiped out when we get to 21 so we can do what we like ...
ReplyDeleteWorking in a Youth Offending Team I've heard this mistake many times - caused by the proliferation of US crime series on TV. The shock when they discover the UK rules is palpable, but also too late.
DeleteI've thought for a while that it is wrong that anyone beyond the convicted person and the judicial system have access to someone's criminal record. If the principal of paying your debt to society were to be upheld and perceived to be so then a persons previous convictions shouldn't matter a jot to an employer. I'd go as far as making it illegal to require a CRB check in all but a few cases where security vetting already applies. However this does lead to the conclusion that for the public to believe that someone's debt is paid the sentences must be made harsher.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with the word 'harsher' but prison sentences are a big issue. If someone pleads guilty they get a third off. So our maximum prison sentence comes down from six moths to four. They will not serve more than half, almost certainly less and time on remand is taken off the sentence.
DeleteI have heard it said that if someone is sentenced to a couple of weeks inside, on a Friday, they will almost certainly be turned away on arrival as it's not the worth the time of the prison staff to get the administration done to take them in.
What the public don't like is someone who they think should have been inside for six months, coming out after barely a handful of weeks.
There is one thing keeping information for intelligence purposes but it is quite another for general use.
ReplyDeleteIf you had a child who stole a bar of chocolate or was involved with a fight with a sibbling you wouldn't hold it against them forever- you would forgive and forget.
Given it is a lottery if your caught or not there mustbe thousands out there who have escaped by the skin of their teeth.
It just feels wron that minor errors should leasd to major consequences.
Come off it, StillAnon, why should an employer not prefer an honest to a dishonest applicant?
ReplyDeleteThey absolutely will. I'm saying they should not know. If sentencing reflected the crime and the general public believed that a person had paid their debt to society then no one has the right to hold it against them. More practically it will mean offenders can get employment and cut reoffending rates.
DeleteThe guilty plea should have resulted in the avoidance of an INCREASED sentence , not a reduced one. We live in a SOFT society.
ReplyDeleteSo what has happened to rehabilitation ? If an offender is barred forever from employment, as seems to be the practice, then crime becomes self-perpetuating, surely ?
ReplyDeletebeing the cynic that I am, I find it very difficult to believe a person has got to 50 years of age and only then succumbed to temptation. Likelihood is they've always sailed close to the wind and only now just got caught - I don't believe you can have an isolated lapse of moral conscience and deceive those who have trusted you and who is going to be at a financial loss/inconvenience.
ReplyDeleteFor everyone who has committed an offence there must always have been a first time. I can see no more reason that this should have been at 15 than at 50, or later. It happens.
ReplyDeleteScience has thoroughly documented that teenagers have not yet developed impulse control. 50-year-olds have. There's the reason.
DeleteIn New Zealand it seems that the disproportionate effect a conviction would have is actually usable as a defence...
ReplyDeletehttp://www.3news.co.nz/Drink-drivers-avoid-conviction/tabid/423/articleID/290364/Default.aspx
Hypothetically speaking, why might a former wife of a former cabinet minister, with a conviction that involved deception, go straight back into her professorship and government consultancies directly after serving her prison sentence ? If a longstanding blight on career prospects is a reasonable punishment for the 50-years old mentioned above, then why not for all ?
ReplyDeleteThe son of a colleague, married to an American woman, is regularly refused entry to the US because he was cautioned at the age of 18 for possession of cannabis. I don't think the Australian government takes a very lenient view of convictions, either. Bang go the holidays, let alone visiting the inlaws
ReplyDelete