New data which shows around one in four people has a criminal record has led to increased calls for fairer checks on criminal records by employers.

On Monday the Ministry of Justice released its estimate of the number of individuals of working age with a nominal record on the Police National Computer (PNC).

According to a Ministry of Justice extract of PNC data there were 9.4 million offenders of working age (16-64) with a nominal record, as opposed to the population of 42.4m. 

Nominal records include not only those persons with convictions but also those with impending prosecutions, cautions, cases that require no further action and any other criminal justice activity on their record.

The Home Office reported that there were 12.6m nominal records held on the PNC for individuals with a criminal element against their names. 

In its report, the MoJ said that based on these two data extracts, it was estimated that approximately one out of every four people of working age in the UK has a record. The MoJ stated the figures are an estimate which has limitations and that a comprehensive programme of work would need to be undertaken to determine a precise figure. 

But Penelope Gibbs, the director of Transform Justice, said the data demonstrated the need for a fairer criminal record disclosure system. 

Reacting to the new MoJ data, Gibbs told the Gazette: ‘What is means is that this affects just the most astonishing number of people in the country. We also know that a quarter of all employers will not even look at somebody who has a criminal record, so that has massive implications for people who did something a long time ago and are simply trying to move on in their lives.’

Gibbs heads a campaign called #FairChecks which is calling for no automatic disclosure of cautions on criminal records; for childhood offences to be automatically removed from a child’s record at 18 and for short and suspended prison sentences to be excluded from standard and enhanced criminal record checks after a set period.

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