New Rehabilitation Periods For Ex-offenders in 2013

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Amongst new plans to reduce re-offending, the Government is reducing the amount of time after which a conviction is deemed to be spent.

Certain jobs require disclosure of criminal records in order to determine the suitability of a candidate to the nature of the role. All convictions carry a rehabilitation period and after this period, subject to certain exclusions, a candidate is considered rehabilitated and is not required to disclose the ‘spent’ conviction to the prospective employer.

Parts of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 are expected to come into force in April 2013 which will change the periods after which a conviction is deemed ‘spent’, and is therefore undisclosable, are shown in the tables below. Please note that rehabilitation periods are different when the offender is under 18 (a youth offender) at the date of conviction, therefore a separate table sets out the relevant rehabilitation periods below:

Sentence	Current adult rehabilitation period	New adult rehabilitation period
Absolute discharge	6 months	None
Fine	5 years	1 year from conviction
Community order	5 years	1 year
0 - 6 months	7 years	2 years
6 - 30 months	10 years	4 years
30 months - 4 years	Never spent	7 years
Over 4 years	Never spent	Never spent

Sentence	Current youth rehabilitation period	New youth rehabilitation period
Absolute discharge	6 months	None
Fine	2.5 years	6 months from conviction
Community order	2.5 years	6 months
0 - 6 months	3.5 years	18 months
6 - 30 months	5 years	2 years
30 months - 4 years	Never spent	3.5 years
Over 4 years	Never spent	Never spent

For any further clarification, please call our 24 Hour Advice Service on 0844 892 2772 .