How to get a job after being in prison? Divine intervention?

mfc1886

scuffer I replied a few pages back and can confirm that I suffered a good few knocks on the way to getting the job I wanted and after everything that had happened I too was finding it really hard to keep pushing on. I dont know what else to say as I found that advice from people only mattered if I had the drive to act on it which I did not always have but in the end I had to do it and I did.

Habbakuk

I'm going to post you a letter written by somebody who'se had experiences not unrelated to yours. The British justice system is brutal in that unlike many other (yes Britain is in Europe) European countries, there isn't really anything which comes near to 'rehabilitation'. Your convictions will be wiped when you are 100 years old or when you die; whichever is the soonest. That's a fact.

My advice to you is to try and gain a skill which will keep you away from the public sector. So a teaching qualification or similar is a no no. They'll possibly allow you on the course but getting a job will be another matter. You'll have a manager there looking at your application with the results of a criminal record search and he or she will be also be taking yours along with other clean applications through a risk assessment. Who are they going to employ? Having said that about working in the private sector as maybe an electrician, the situtation may well transpire that your employer will need you to provide a record certificate because their company sometimes does some kind of work in schools/hospitals/other places where you are deemed a possible threat to the public. This will also apply to a myriad of other trades too; building, plumbing, bus driving etc etc.

You could always go to one of the many countries which will allow you in without carrying out a check. But if you're not going to do this for the rest of you life and remain abroad like-wise, you are just temporarily running away from your problems.

Timpsons are to be applauded. But you are an intelligent young man. Do you want to be doing that kind of work for years on end?

My only advice to you is to get a skill which will allow you to be your own boss and that will enable you to stay as clear as possible from the eyes of the state. It really is that simple and that harsh. I'm experiencing problems and I didn't even serve time. I hope my post doesn't discourage you as it shouldn't. All you need to do is make sure you skill yourself up in an area where your skills will be in great demand. If I could be 20 something again, I think I would go for something like a gas heating engineer. Your electrical skills won't go to waste there either. But do your own research. And to a degree, life is a gamble. Good luck.

Below isn't my story but somebody else's. It's worth a read.

It’s now more than thirty-three years since I was released from prison. I thought then, naively, that the worst was over. I had served two years of a three and a half year sentence. But I didn’t realise then that the real punishment hadn’t even begun.
I’m not complaining about being sent to prison; I deserved it. I was just eighteen and had done something terrible when I was wild-drunk and running with a gang; so I’d got my just desserts. What I didn’t understand at the time was that I had actually been sentenced to eighty-two years as a near-unemployable pariah. Under current laws, I will have a criminal record until I’m one hundred years old.
The sentence didn’t begin to take effect immediately. Once released on parole I went straight back to work in an engineering factory, but my apprenticeship was ruined. I wasn’t allowed to continue it because of union rules. I would have been over twenty-one by the time it was completed and that wasn’t allowed. So the first stage of the life-long punishment was to restrict me to semi-skilled work. But I didn’t let that happen.
At twenty, still on parole, and at the encouragement of my Probation Officer, I became a Probation Volunteer. I’d learned to my cost how easy it is to go out on the raz with some mates, load up on drink and drugs and, if things get out of hand, end up in prison. So I was encouraged to use that experience for the benefit of others; and I did. I ran a small group for young men on probation using my engineering skills to teach motor mechanics. It went well, and I learned that I loved teaching and helping others. My parole expired with no further problems. I was officially a free man. But that was an illusion.
Still determined to reach my potential, I left the production line, went to college and qualified as a technician. I got good grades and found work in the entertainment industry in London. It was the mid-eighties and there was plenty of work and money. But I’d become disenchanted with the depth of relationship a man can have with machines, and I still wasn’t satisfied by manual labour so, after travelling extensively across Europe and Asia, I returned to education. I’ve always loved to study so I planned to take two A levels over two years during the day, and another over one year in the evenings. I worked the rest of the time as a barman, a pot-washer and a decorator. By the end of the first year my grades were so good that my tutor encouraged me to go straight to university; so I applied.
I still wanted to continue my work with young offenders, drinkers and drug users to help others avoid the pit I’d fallen into. In the summer before the university term began, I trained and started work as a volunteer alcohol counsellor, and I got some work as relief worker in a hostel. When it became apparent I was just as bright and committed as the paid staff, I decided to make a career of it. With my shiny new A level and my engineering qualification I was accepted onto a social work course as a mature student. Then, on the first day, the true extent of my sentence started to become clear. Although it was now was ten years since my conviction, I had to fill out a form disclosing my offence – and was promptly dismissed from the course. One of the lecturers, someone very committed to the ethos of rehabilitation, was sympathetic to my situation. He offered me a place on a psychology course, but he also advised me to tell the staff at the counselling agency and the hostel about my record – up until that point I’d never been asked – so I disclosed; they both sacked me on the spot. There was a clear ‘us’ and ‘them’ distinction to be made. I was clearly labelled as one of ‘them’ and so could not become one of ‘us’ for fear that the reputation of their agencies would be tarnished. I was clearly too bad to become good.
Nevertheless, I continued my degree and I loved it. I gained first-class marks for my dissertation and only missed an overall ‘first’ by three marks. I became committed to the idea of education as a way out of unhealthy and unhelpful lifestyles. With good grades and references, I applied for a place in clinical psychology, and I was offered interviews for two prestigious courses. I accepted – and then told them about my record. The offers were immediately withdrawn. Fourteen years on; and still too bad to be good.
After graduating, I got some part-time sessional work teaching A levels at the local college; no questions asked. Then I got a full time job with the Probation Service – full disclosure notwithstanding – and I did well. After a few months my manager suggested I go for a master’s in social work. I attended an interview and was offered a place on the course. You can probably guess the next bit – so, instead, I took a job with the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders; they had a specific policy of not excluding ex-offenders. I worked hard and did well running training courses for health and criminal justice professionals. But, after four years, the funding ran out and I was made redundant so I went to work part-time in a prison assessing drug use and offering harm reduction advice. The Governor knew about my record and was enlightened about reformed characters helping others. Then one of my NHS contacts suggested I apply for a full-time job with them. As it was now eighteen years since my offence, I was considered rehabilitated enough and got a great job in the NHS. I did well for the next seven years, and worked my way up to being a commissioning manager – even after disclosing my record. Things seemed to be looking up, and my past was well behind me.
However, over the next two years, scandals of child abuse in care homes started to emerge, Dr. Harold Shipman was convicted of mass murder, the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) was launched and Ian Huntley murdered Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman. Everyone in health and social care was twitchy, and employers started covering their backs. Policies on employing ex-offenders were rapidly redrawn. My manager came to me and said that I was going to have to leave; it was nothing personal, just a matter of policy. It was now twenty-five years since my conviction.
I could have fought it at a tribunal, but that would have meant going public about my past and would have been wholly counterproductive. The only way out was to become self-employed; so I did. At that time, limited companies weren’t subjected to the same kind of scrutiny as employees because everyone was too busy purging their existing workforce and vetting new appointments. Limited companies offering consultancy had an air of legitimacy about them that job-seeking individuals did not. That tactic lasted for a couple of years until the care industry caught up with the changes in legislation and effectively ended the rehabilitative culture by screening everyone for everything. A friend of mine even lost his job in a fence-building company when his employer won a contract to install fences around schools – even though his record had nothing to do with kids, no-one was taking any chances. The ‘us’ and ‘them’ was now more clearly defined and supported in law. No more could one-time poachers become worthwhile gamekeepers.
Since its inception in 2002, at least 150,000 ‘unsuitable people’ have been prevented from working with children and vulnerable adults as a direct result of a CRB check; and I’m one of them. Even though I have never harmed a child or a vulnerable person – or even hit a healthy adult – I became labelled as ‘unsuitable’, and the breadth with which the terms of CRB checks were applied is staggering. Because local authorities, the NHS and charities look after vulnerable people, and were all falling over themselves to demonstrate their commitment to protecting the young and vulnerable, doors were slamming shut all around me. As a result, I no longer qualified even to be a dustman in the town where I was working as an interim manager in local government. The menial, manual labouring jobs usually available to ex-cons – parks workers, cleaners, road-sweepers etc. – were suddenly locked behind a screen of suspicion, and the chance to work in an office with the respectable people became completely unattainable.
To find work I found myself having to download my record onto websites at the application stage, without knowing who was reading it or what would happen to it next. In the real world – and despite the rhetoric – if you have a criminal record you don’t actually qualify for confidentiality or privacy. Your past is considered public business – and people love to gossip. Even the agencies funded by the taxpayer to support the rehabilitation of offenders lurched into the fray. They would all print nice little blurbs saying that having a record wasn’t “necessarily a barrier to employment,” but they still had the right to know about it and discriminate against people because of it. The well-intentioned Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (1974) had been torpedoed as effectively as the General Belgrano, and ex-offenders everywhere were drowning in the raging waters of a moral backlash.
Every society seems to need an ‘out-group’, a bunch of people we can all point at to feel good about ourselves by claiming we are better than they are; ex-offenders were now, definitely, that group. After nearly two years on the dole, and in grave danger of losing my home and not being able to support my teenager, I went to my MP. His response was chilling: “It’s a tough life, get used to it.”
Then, at last, and after making a full disclosure at the application stage, I got a job with one of the country’s biggest rehabilitation charities famed for “turning lives around”. My background, skills and experience made me ideally suited to the role and my presentation at the interview went very well. But the managers hadn’t read my application form thoroughly; they hadn’t read my disclosure. So, after two weeks in the job, and having been introduced to nearly one hundred colleagues, I was dismissed when the CRB check came back. But it wasn’t as simple as that. First I had to go through a risk assessment. What happened in this session was that I was dragged back through the most difficult and shameful period of my life by someone who was still in primary school at the time. The risk assessment used was the same as the one the Probation Service use with people very recently convicted, and I was treated as if I had committed my offence just the day before. It was a truly gruesome experience; like having your soul scorched with a magnifying glass for the sadistic sense of power it brought to my employer. Then the results were phoned through to one of the agency’s directors; I was never told their name. The decision to fire me was made on policy alone and delivered over the phone the next day. The results of the assessment weren’t even relevant; there was no evidence of risk to either clients or colleagues, just the reputation of the employer. There had been no need to put me through that at all. Oh, and would I “be a love” and drop the keys off.
It was obvious to all my suddenly ex-colleagues why I had had to leave – so no confidentiality for me. Bumping into them at social events afterwards was excruciating. And long-gone was the right to rehabilitation that the charity earned its £50+ million per year from. My family and I were devastated; my child had been overjoyed when I finally got work and had been looking forward to the first proper holiday together for two years. Never underestimate the toll that parental unemployment takes on the kids. And then I had to explain why it had happened. It’s tough explaining to a thirteen year old why everyone hates their dad.
My career for the last twenty-six years has been in health, social care and education. Employment agencies in those fields now use “a clean CRB/DBS within the last 12 months” as a form of qualification; a qualification I can never obtain in this lifetime – and not the way such vetting procedures were intended to be used. CRB and DBS checks have shut me out, and no-one is taking on inexperienced beginners in their fifties – no matter what the trade or profession. Imagine you are over fifty, and applying for work. Think about how you’d feel if you had to be risk-assessed based on how you behaved during your worst five minutes on one wild night out when you were just eighteen. That’s how the system works.
Now, it’s easy to say “There are other ways of earning a living.” But, if you actually read job adverts, you’ll see they all demand previous experience of the role on offer; either that, or you have to be twenty-one and fresh out of college. The notion of ‘transferable skills’ is no more meaningful than most buzzwords. The last full-time job I applied for, reverting to my engineering background, was as a surveyor for a solar panel installation firm. I passed the interview and they offered me the job on the spot. Then they asked for a CRB check – not previously mentioned in the advert or the person spec. I showed them the one I had from the charity job a couple of years previously, and that was that; there’s the door.
And it’s even easier to say “Well, you shouldn’t have done it, should you.” And you’d be right. I’ve got no argument with that, or with the concept of a criminal record as a deterrent, or with the police and courts keeping records of crimes committed to be taken into account in any future sentencing. But deterrents only work for premeditated crimes, and mine wasn’t. And the whole point of punishment is to bring about a correction to behaviour, which I achieved over thirty years ago. So, how long should a punishment continue? How long should the state, its institutions and its charities punish someone for a teenage crime with such ruthless, systematic social exclusion? Eighty-two years? That’s a life sentence.
In the last four years, I’ve applied for over four hundred jobs, and now I’ve lost my home. I’m trying to survive on £150 pw as a part-time unskilled worker with no benefits or state support of any kind – and I’m taking another degree. Maybe, this year, my offence will finally become spent, but only if I don’t want to work to help or educate others. That kind of work is now permanently ring-fenced for the saintly; enhanced DBS searches reveal everything to almost anyone who asks. Everyone is treated as a potential !!!!!phile, and that is the justification used for the removal of the right to privacy – just as the prevention of terrorism is used to justify mass surveillance.
At the last election my previous MP was replaced by a man who summed up the situation very nicely. He said “You’ve been caught in a net never intended for you.” It was good to have that recognised, but I still can’t pursue my profession, and there are still hundreds of thousands of us trapped in that net

.

Tahlullah

This is so depressing, it makes a mockery of what we as a society stand for.

Thank you for posting it.

Habbakuk

And one other thing Scuffer, most people on here won't have experienced what you have been through and experiencing and likely continue to for years to come; probably for the rest of your life. I would advise you to never reveal as you will just be hanging yourself. You will want to put nice food on the table and find a nice partner and go on holidays and buy nice presents for your kids like other kids have on special occsions and probably one day buy a house. I somehow think that being open about your past will deny you these comforts. It really is in my opinion that difficult. Honesty and openess about your past are mabye not luxuries that you will be able to afford. You will have to try and avoid being in situations where you past will be an issue. Last year the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK government was in breach of of some law or other regarding rehabilitation. In response the UK government have made the slightest of changes to the Rehabilitation law. Yet the newspapers such as the Sun tried to make out that burglars would be working in schools and murderers in hospitals etc etc. No such thing. And they also claimed that taking the UK out of the EU will end us being subject to the rulings of the ECHR. They are two separate 'bodies'. So, with the government and the media so hell bent on getting their pound of flesh....don't expect things to change any time soon.

laura678

I just wanted to offer some words of encouragement I have been in the same position as you trying to find employment with a criminal record, it will happen, so please don't give up hope! I know I might get judged, but I felt I wanted to share some of my experience.


Back when I was a teenager and in the care of the local authority, between the ages of 13 and 18 I was charged with many and various offences. (I would like to add, nothing that would make me a risk to anybody else)




I spent some time in detention centres and then went to prison for a short while. After prison I came out and never re-offended. Fast forward a number of years, settled down, had children, found employment in the retail sector. A number of years ago the law started to change and many jobs wanted a crb check so it became more difficult. It has been difficult finding employment, but I haven't given up; I have just finished another temporary contract it was only a basic admin role; but I am hoping to secure a permanent role again next week, fingers crossed. In my experience, I have found that in interview is the best time to disclose and explain how you are turning your life around and all the positives, never anything negative. One charity (which involved working with older children and teenagers) that I worked for a few years ago, required an enhanced check; once it came through I was called into her office to discuss; I explained the circumstances at the time and did not make any excuses for my behaviour and I was given the job. It will most likely take longer than the average person who has no convictions but you will get secure something in your field eventually. Good luck!

Habbakuk

laura678 wrote: »

I just wanted to offer some words of encouragement I have been in the same position as you trying to find employment with a criminal record, it will happen, so please don't give up hope! I know I might get judged, but I felt I wanted to share some of my experience.


Back when I was a teenager and in the care of the local authority, between the ages of 13 and 18 I was charged with many and various offences. (I would like to add, nothing that would make me a risk to anybody else)




I spent some time in detention centres and then went to prison for a short while. After prison I came out and never re-offended. Fast forward a number of years, settled down, had children, found employment in the retail sector. A number of years ago the law started to change and many jobs wanted a crb check so it became more difficult. It has been difficult finding employment, but I haven't given up; I have just finished another temporary contract it was only a basic admin role; but I am hoping to secure a permanent role again next week, fingers crossed. In my experience, I have found that in interview is the best time to disclose and explain how you are turning your life around and all the positives, never anything negative. One charity (which involved working with older children and teenagers) that I worked for a few years ago, required an enhanced check; once it came through I was called into her office to discuss; I explained the circumstances at the time and did not make any excuses for my behaviour and I was given the job. It will most likely take longer than the average person who has no convictions but you will get secure something in your field eventually. Good luck!

Fair play to you for sharing your story laura678. But you are telling of difficulties you are experiencing years after your conviction for offences which you state were deemed to be of no threat to others. Not only that, as the years go by and the offences themselve fade into the distant past, things are getting even more difficult. CRB checks are now an industry. There's money to be made from it. An organisation can now get bulk checks done for a discount. That's the way things are going. And with all due respect to you laura and what you've achieved, you're talking above about temp jobs in low level administrative and retail roles. Is this what 'rehabilitation' is meant to be like? I wonder if your honesty would get you anywhere in more responsible roles? Good luck with the job next week.

laura678

Habbakuk wrote: »

Fair play to you for sharing your story laura678. But you are telling of difficulties you are experiencing years after your conviction for offences which you state were deemed to be of no threat to others. Not only that, as the years go by and the offences themselve fade into the distant past, things are getting even more difficult. CRB checks are now an industry. There's money to be made from it. An organisation can now get bulk checks done for a discount. That's the way things are going. And with all due respect to you laura and what you've achieved, you're talking above about temp jobs in low level administrative and retail roles. Is this what 'rehabilitation' is meant to be like? I wonder if your honesty would get you anywhere in more responsible roles? Good luck with the job next week.

Habbakuk- I was trying to point out that there is hope with finding employment with a criminal record, and was trying to say not to write about a prison sentence on a cv; but to wait until interview or write a letter of disclosure with the app form or cv- and yes I was given a job that required responsibility -to work with older children and teenagers; which you would not expect to be able to do with any type of criminal conviction.


Unfortunately, as I was in the care system; I was not made to have an education and so I have been working temp roles. However, in recent years, I have been to college to take my gcse's and I am studying towards a Bsc Open Degree; in the hopes that one day I can achieve something a little better..

Habbakuk

You say laura that you were given a job working with older chilren and teenagers. How long ago was this? Were you working alone with them?

I actually went and got a degree and did teachers training and had to disclose as you can imagine. The training college had no reservations at all about allowing me to study with them. After all, I am not on List 99 I think they call it which is a list of barred people from the taching proffession. But, actually trying to get a job as a teacher after graduation is another matter. I then tried to work with young adulst and in the late 90's was on a Training For Work scheme where my job was to help young adults mainly but always after school aged students to improve their literacy and numeracy skills. Most of them were quite hard cases. The training organisation which fell under the arms of the Local Authority wanted to take me on because I got on well with the students and the other staff. Then there was the the formality of filling in the application form with the requirement to disclose. That was the end of that. And this was before Shipman or Huntley and the rush for every manager to cover their own backs.

Recently I went for a job as a taxi driver. Well, I was promised the jobe but I had to gat a license. I telephoned the LA and spoke to a guy about my situation regarding disclosure. He said that it would have to go to their legal department and that there would be some kind of 'hearing'.......I can't remember what he called it and that there would be the possibility of a member of the press being present. Again....that was the end of that. I'm not having what happened in the 80's dragged up again. They were basically a couple of occurences which involved alcohol abuse and getting into trouble afterwards with no child or vulnerable person involved.

Yes, be positive. But be realistic too.

Scuffer

gallygirl wrote: »

Oooohhhhh, ding dong methinks :happyhear

Ha! Was it really that obvious? Nothing is going to happen anyway, i have to focus on getting back in to university.

Scuffer

mfc1886 wrote: »

scuffer I replied a few pages back and can confirm that I suffered a good few knocks on the way to getting the job I wanted and after everything that had happened I too was finding it really hard to keep pushing on. I dont know what else to say as I found that advice from people only mattered if I had the drive to act on it which I did not always have but in the end I had to do it and I did.

Hi, i did read your posts but unsure if you are genuine or not. Can you PM me from your other account first? The only reason i ask is because i've been hounded by the same troll under new accounts about 5 times now and i'm not sure if it is a trick or not.