Sir Robert Mark Commissioner for the Metropolitan police in the 1970s, famously announced that that he wanted the Met to catch more criminals than they employed. So where do unemployed criminals go?
An unhealthy proportion of those imprisoned (43%) go on to re-offend. But wait, that is only unemployed criminals Of those who are employed re-offending is far lower (18%) (Figures from People Management).
And how many criminals are out there? About one in six of us has a criminal offence. Typical attendance on my workshops in the 1990s was twelve. Cleudo like, I used to invite delegates to see if they could spot the two!
The truth is that criminal convictions are more prevalent that we might think and many are irrelevant to employment. Trespassing on a railway (to take photographs, for example) is a criminal offence as are many driving offences. The majority of criminals are not imprisoned.
The automatic assumption that criminals are necessarily more dishonest, more likely to be violent, or to harass others, is flawed.
The labour market is becoming tighter. Employers seeking to increase their pool of potential employees can look wider. Timpsons, Marks and Spencer and Virgin are among those leading the way.
And there is further advice out there, for example:
Russell Webster: http://www.russellwebster.com/jobs-2/looking-for-good-staff/
Offploy: http://offploy.org/about
Malcolm Martin FCIPD
Author Human Resource Practice