Has a criminal record in early adulthood held you back? We want to hear from you!

A criminal record at whatever age can be a real obstacle in getting on in life. But are there specific barriers that people face because of a criminal record that they got as a young adult?

In the last couple of years, we’ve worked closely with the Standing Committee for Youth Justice to look at childhood criminal records.

We’re now doing some work to focus specifically on problems people face from criminal records they got when they were a young adult. By ‘young adult’, we mean people aged 18-25.

We’re looking to collect evidence that will help us to better understand the structural barriers that people face in dealing with a criminal record that they got as a young adult. We know that the full impact of having a criminal record, of any sort, may not fully emerge until long after it was given, so we’re keen to hear from both people aged between 18-25 now, as well as those who are now older but got their record as a young adult.

We’re keen to hear from a wide range of voices, not just those that have been to prison. So, whether you’ve been to prison, given probation, fined or given a caution, we want to hear from you.

We also want to hear from practitioners and organisations that have experience in this area.

Your answers will be treated in confidence and will directly inform our recommendations for structural and practical changes. These recommendations will be shared with people who have the power to make things better.

So what do we want to know?

We’ve put together a short online survey for people with a criminal record – it should only take 5-10 minutes, and all responses will be confidential and no personal details shared externally.

You can fill out the online survey here.

Practitioners and organisations that want to contribute can share their thoughts by emailing them to policy@unlock.org.uk.

The initial deadline for responses is 5pm on Monday 17th July.

Thank you for your support.