Ethical question - how do you feel about second chance??

Were both those laws bought in after lobbying from the victims' familes?

Yes MissAdventure; Sarah's Law was introduced in 2000, following the abduction and murder of little Sarah Payne, by convicted paedophile Roy Whiting.
Clare's Law was set up after Clare Wood was murdered and set on fire by George Appleton in 2009.

BlessedArt

Depends on the crime I suppose. No blanket rules for all. All crimes are not equal.

Yes, I think it does very much depend on the crime.

Are there crimes for which "serving time" with a view to rehabilitation becomes a meaningless concept, such as the sexual or violent physical abuse of very young children - even babies?

Were both those laws bought in after lobbying from the victims' familes?

Claire’s Law does a similar thing if you have a new partner and checks for previous domestic abuse.

If you care for children, you can make a Sarah’s Law application, formally known as the Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme and it's a process in England and Wales that empowers parents, carers, and guardians to formally ask the police to check if an individual who has contact with a child has a record for child sexual offences.

For me, personally, I'd give any offender a 2nd chance except if they had been convicted of any offence against children. There's no coming back from that and I'd shun them totally.

Depends on the crime I suppose. No blanket rules for all. All crimes are not equal.

I actually worked, as a colleague, with a young mixed race man in his early 20’s.

He was a ex-gang member, from London, and had served a sentence for gun crime (holding it for another gang member).

He looked the typical stereo-typical gang member, with two gold teeth and on first meeting him, he was quite scary.

I was on secondment with a large county council and working alongside family workers and families in the Tory funded prevent/stop child poverty “Troubled Families” project (ironic)

However, as always I digress, this young man had been brought up by a single mum who herself was a victim of more than one domestic abuse event, he was “brought up” in a series of different women refuges and temporary accommodation.

By 8 this young man was a “runner” for a local gang, by 12 he was concealing drugs, often internally, by 16 he’d fathered a son and by 18 he was in prison.

Prison was his salvation, he found peace with a prison chaplain and came out of prison a very changed person.

After I left the project I stayed in touch with him and still follow him on Facebook.

He met a lovely lady, he married her and together they started an organisation, Reach Every Generation, who work with schools, colleges, parents and vulnerable girls and boys to show them by personal experience how not to get involved with gangs. They also work with those in gangs, and those ex-gang members.

He and his wife have three lovely children of their own and he sees his first child, now an adult, very regularly.

This is what giving someone a second chance can achieve.

If you’re interested in looking what he’s achieved, follow Reach Every Generation on Facebook and Instagram, or here

reacheverygeneration.co.uk/

I’m proud to have worked with and learned from him.

I think it is very difficult to return to a social group, mainly because if the damage done, I knew someone who worked in a small office and was found guilty of stealing from the company's accounts. The people she worked with were absolutely devastated at the betrayal.

One of our neighbours went to a prison for accepting bribes for contracts. It was a huge shock to us all.
His wife was a good friend who was a member of our social group.
He obviously was never allowed to do his former type of employment but took on manual jobs, gardening etc when released.
The only real casualty was his son who left University and became something of a loner.
He just fitted back in and nobody treated him any differently to before.
I think the type of crime is very relevant.
Didn’t the founder of Timpsons do a lot of very good rehabilitation by employing ex offenders in his business?

I too have worked with ex offenders, dependent on both their character and level rehabilitation I think most ex offenders do deserve a second or even third chance.

Many criminals in our prison system haven’t committed violent or sexual crimes, though I’ve worked with both, as well as many less serious non violent crimes.

They’ve served their prison sentence, done their penance and deserve a chance to attempt to rebuild their lives.

That should have said 'repeat' cash thief !!

NotSpaghetti

Rocketstop2 whoever had taken them on would have been in contact (at least) with a person who knew the offences - they don't want work/rehab to fail so do try to find something appropriate.

Really unless you were the owner - or someone in control of hiring I don't see why you should even know they were ex-offenders.

Not trying to be rude. Just my opinion.

Hi, No you certainly aren't being rude .I was in charge of hiring but had higher management above me who did not work at my location.Obviously there are some ex crimes we would feel more comfortable with than others. The point I was making was that for example a pepeat cash thief should not work the till, or a fraudster should not be given a job in the accounts office. No problem with people being rehabilitated, but horses for courses and all that !

I totally agree Gwyllt prison is the punishment and offenders deserve a chance to get on with their lives and put their crime behind them. There are checks in place to ensure that sex offenders are not employed in certain roles or have easy access to children etc and I think we should also give them a chance of restitution. I listened to a radio programme recently about the work that is being done with sex offenders and it was helpful to me hearing their stories. Many sex offenders have been abused themselves as children.

I hear everything people are saying. However if people aren’t given a second chance what does the future hold for then and society ?

As a senior manager, I had to 'fight' our company security manager to give a young woman a second chance. She worked in a restaurant and was taking some of the cash payments to fund her alcoholism. She was early 20's and didn't have a great up bringing (not that was an excuse but). Obviously she had been sacked from her job and had just finished a probation sentence. She went into treatment and joined AA. She paid all the money back and was helping younger adults in her situation. She came for an interview, now we had extra security checks due to being an airport company. She should have been immeditaely rejected on paper due to her 'record' but I decided to talk to her. I believed her when she said it was the drink that drove her to steal. Anyway, I spoke to security who said 'Nope' at least 3 times. I then put a case - we didn't handle cash, she would in a team where she'd always be supervised at her desk, the work output was accountable by numbers as we had data from previous employee of what was achieveable. I would take responsibility for her. He relented but strict 3 month probation period etc. She'd applied at the lowest paid job but boy she made it her own, far exceeded all targets, she made great friends, asked to learn about the next job up in her own time. After two years, she asked if she could go for promotion and I agreed. She became a brilliant employee, no trouble and just proved she needed a little faith from someone and yes, a bit more support. I would do it again but you do have to dig deep into the why and are they prepared to share their story. I hadn't asked why she stole, she just wanted everything out so people didn't feel she was hiding anything.

From the late 80s, the government allowed local authorities to ask the police directly for checks on a small number of staff, (like those running children's home).

This eventually became the Police Act 1997, and finally, the CRB check in 2002.

From 2002 there have been checks available for those working with children or vulnerable adults.
So most people now have some protection.

I do know there are horror stories but the rehousing of sex offenders is taken very seriously.

Rocketstop2 whoever had taken them on would have been in contact (at least) with a person who knew the offences - they don't want work/rehab to fail so do try to find something appropriate.

Really unless you were the owner - or someone in control of hiring I don't see why you should even know they were ex-offenders.

Not trying to be rude. Just my opinion.

In general it would not bother me if someone has been in prison. If it was because of rape or anything to do children I admit it would make me feel uncomfortable and I would not want to live next door to them.

My friend never re-offended and her offence was a fairly trivial one in the scheme of things. It had no connection with her employer. She did not believe that it should be allowed to affect the remainder of her life. I agree.

Back in the 1980s I became friends with a woman who had done 6 months for fraud. She tried temping but because she was honest about her offence they would not take her on. The interviewer as good as told her "go elsewhere because we do not normally check". So she went to another agency and signed on, keeping quiet about her conviction.

She had done several computer related qualifications in prison validated by a local college. No reference to prison. She also reverted to her maiden name. After 18 months temping she was offered a permanent job by one employer and went on to become office manager. Eventually she returned to her native Ireland and subsequently worked for a firm of solicitors.

I believe the solicitors knew about her past but none of the other employers did. She said it does not do to be too honest about your background. Back then (late 1980s/90s) there were not all these DBS checks so it was easy to hide a slightly dubious background. A woman could always say she was "caring" to disguise a gap on her CV and no one would question it.

Every sinner has a future and every saint a past.

Allsorts

I would never trust anyone who abused children. No discussion on that.

Yes, that would be my attitude too. No second chances for child abusers of any kind, nor rapists or anyone convicted of animal cruelty.

I once managed somewhere , where we were asked , if not required by law to take on ex offenders. I've no problem with people turning a new leaf but what I hated was when I asked, I was told I would not be larty to the 'Types' of crimes they had commited in the past but it wouldn't be anything 'Too bad'
I'm going back about twenty years but It worried me because I worked with at that time a lot of vulnerable or elderly people , and they would leave their purses out and carelessly chat about leaving money out for the gardener and that type of thing.Their handbags and personal posessions were rarely locked away and I just worried that temptation could be put in the way of someone. I don't know if the rules have changed but I wouldn't feel comfortable unless I knew the type of crime.

Agreed, Allsorts.

I would never trust anyone who abused children. No discussion on that.