Re: Add spent convictions to the discrimination legislation
Add discriminating based on spent convictions to the discrimination legislation and be done with it.
Assuming there is widespread discrimination against criminals, attempting to ban it is unlikely to work. The only way to actually address it is to find out why people consider criminals below typical employees.
Do they feel the criminal hasn't been punished appropriately? - should punishments be more significant?
Do they feel the criminal is unlikely to be reformed? - does a conviction without prison actually reform anyone or is it just a line in a file and they continue as before?
Do they feel that there is no 'right' to a second chance and diminished employment prospects for life are part and parcel of any conviction? - do people consider that there is no right to a second chance and that they have the right not to offer one?
There are so many ways for employers to discover 'spent' convictions that circumvent the ROA, that tinkering with googles search results is unlikely to make a meaningful difference.
Identifying the wider publics apparent concern around criminals and making sure their concerns get addressed at source is more likely to produce the desired outcome than any attempts to couple seperate legislation. Peoples concerns must be based on something, if enough employers are avoiding convicts that it is an actual problem, so that should be the primary focus rather than hiding the conviction.