Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974
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| Long title | An Act to rehabilitate offenders who have not been reconvicted of any serious offence for periods of years, to penalise the unauthorised disclosure of their previous convictions, to amend the law of defamation, and for purposes connected therewith. |
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| Citation | 1974 c. 53 |
| Introduced by | Kenneth Marks |
| Territorial extent | United Kingdom |
| Dates | |
| Royal assent | 31 July 1974 |
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Status: Current legislation
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| Text of statute as originally enacted | |
The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (c.53) of the UK Parliament enables some criminal convictions to be ignored after a rehabilitation period. Its purpose is that people do not have a lifelong blot on their records because of a relatively minor offence in their past. The rehabilitation period is automatically determined by the sentence. After this period, if there has been no further conviction the conviction is "spent" and, with certain exceptions, need not be disclosed by the ex-offender in any context such as when applying for a job, obtaining insurance, or in civil proceedings. A conviction for the purposes of the ROA includes a conviction issued outside Great Britain (see s1(4) of the 1974 Act) and therefore foreign convictions are eligible to receive the protection of the ROA.
Under the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 (section 139), the Act as it applies in England and Wales was updated to provide new rehabilitation periods – with most convictions becoming spent in a shorter amount of time. For adults, the rehabilitation period is one year for community orders, two years for custodial sentences of six months or less, four years for custodial sentences of over six months and up to and including 30 months, and seven years for custodial sentences of over 30 months and up to and including 48 months. Custodial sentences of over four years will never become spent and must continue to be disclosed when necessary. Under the 2012 Act, the rehabilitation period starts on the date of conviction in the case of fines, but for custodial sentences it starts after the offender has completed the sentence (including time on licence) and for community orders it starts when the order ceases to have effect. For example, an offender who received a two-year prison sentence will see the conviction spent six years from date of conviction - (two year sentence + four year rehabilitation period). For offenders who are under the age of 18 when convicted, the rehabilitation period is half that of an adult.
A conviction that is spent under British law may not be so considered elsewhere. For example, criminal convictions must be disclosed when applying to enter the United States; spent convictions are not excluded for US immigration purposes under US law.
The Act makes it an offence for anyone with access to criminal records to disclose spent convictions unless authorised to do so. The Act makes it a more serious offence to obtain such information by means of fraud, dishonesty or bribe.
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