h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Entry: The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 - A87720122
Author: Vip - U188069

Hiya,

This is a tricky subject to approach because it's not really that interesting. My aim was to give a quick overview to make people aware of its existance without going into so much detail that it becomes dull.

On the other hand, it could just be boring. No offence will be taken if it is, I promise. Please say so!

Vip

Useful ViP but I thought there were exclusions on the crime side too. So crimes against children don't expire for example.

No, they do become spent, but because children are a protected group of people any job that involves interacting with them is automatically exempt from the Act.

If someone was going for a job in a warehouse, say, and had 7 months inprisonment for indecent images of childred but it occured fifteen years ago, that would be spent and wouldn't need to be disclosed.

If they were working for a cleaning company that cleaned in a school, then that spent conviction would be seen/disclosed and taken into account before they took the person on (or not).

I've popped in an extra sentence in the 'Does This Apply For Every Job?' section to try and make this clearer.
"In effect, it means that someone wants to work in these types of professions it will feel as though the convictions are never spent."

Oh, and thanks for taking a look through by the way, it is appreciated.

Seems a very worthy Entry Vip. It's good to have the expert side of matters explained. Thanks.

I can't quite make sense of that new sentence. Is it missing a word somewhere?

I like the rest of the entry though. A potentially dull subject made interesting.


Geggs

I actually think it's an extra word that's causing the problem. Oops. That's what you get for re-writing bits of a sentence too often.

Thanks, Geggs.

I was wondering whether you could just add in a tiny phrase about insurance? ie that it includes car insurance as well. (I discovered recently that I'd told a commercial car insurance company that one of my employees had a clean driving licence but in fact I found out many years later that he had an unspent conviction for serious driving offence, and that this would have affected the vehicle insurance had he been honest with me.)

>>>
This might range from a petty crime that earned them a fine all the way up to a serious crime that locked them up in prison for several years, but it affects a lot of people and their families.<<<

I think the [but] is misplaced here, so how about something like


This might range from a petty crime that earned them a fine all the way up to a serious offence that locked them up in prison for several years. This affects a lot of people and their families and close friends.

Maybe not friends, but sometimes people don't have actual relatives.

And I changed one of the crimes to offence.

A couple of typos:


[Unfortuantely], no, this is the gentle introduction. The [offical] version is available for

Otherwise this looks spot on!

Thanks, Lanza. I've amended the typos, changed the sentence as you suggested, and I've added a couple of bits about insurance.

It also applies to insurances you might need as a self-employed person, like public liability, so I've popped that in there as well.

This a good entry and is well-presented. It is obviously totally UK-centric, so I think it would be worth having UK in the title.

Can you please add TITLE tags to your external links:
...

If someone committed the crime before 1974, is it still treated the same as more recent crimes?

UK added and TITLE tags added.

I've also added a paragraph (under Why Should I Care?) stating that all ex-offenders come under the Act, and that any future versions will also apply to everyone as well. I hope that makes it a bit clearer.

Thanks, Gnomon.

Liked the entry but don't have a great deal to add.

A typo in the insurance section: commited --> committed

Like Z said, good Entry but nothing else to add.

Excellent entry - I always like to see this kind of thing in the EG.



sprout

I found the table a little confusing on my first read-through. I've worked it out now, but it wasn't immediately obvious to me.

I found myself reading:

"Prison sentence of over two and half years, Never, Never"

and thinking, never what?

Maybe this could be clarified by amending the table titles?

Typo amended.

DDD I've changes the wording to 'Never Spent' - I hope that makes it clearer. Let me know if you think something else would be better.

Thanks for the comments, it's nice to know I not produced something dull as ditchwater!

'Never Spent' certainly makes it clearer. I still have issues with the table titles and I think they could be made less ambiguous, but I've just asked my wife to appraise it and she thinks I'm being pedantic, as always.

Thanks for making the changes.

A pleasure to make things easier for my readers.

I'll have a think about the table titles and see if I can come up with anything better anyway, but thanks to Mrs DDD as well!

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