An old, minor, criminal record does tend to tell you quite a bit about a person

[BoldAdventurer]

Until recently I would have said that once a person's done their time, maybe learned from their mistakes and moved on it's time to let them put it behind them. I'm not talking about Ched Evans but much less serious crimes.

However, in my current job I get to see staff's DBS checks (and old CRB checks). We employ a lot of people on not much more than minimum wage and there are a handful who have spent convictions. One is for ABH when she was a teenager and there are a number of benefit frauds. These are all people who have been working for the company for a number of years and at the time of thier appointment, it was considered that their past wasn't relevant to their ability to do the job and that if you pay badly you take what you can get .

Anyway, these few staff are more trouble than the rest put together. They are the ones who often make mistakes on their timesheets, but strangely always in their favour, the ones who have loads of one day absences, the ones who do the bare minimum when they are in work, the ones who stir up trouble when unpopular changes are made etc.

So, AIBU, to think that whilst these convictions are very old and it's reasonable to expect that they could be forgotten, they do in fact give quite a good indication of the person's character?

With a post-grad in Social Research Methods, I can see what you are trying to say and it may have some merit. With that in mind, have you a 'control group' to compare your perceptions against? Are your identified 'group' the only source of your workaday/professional angst? Have you identified/labelled any other 'groups' and how do they perform in terms of timesheet accuracy/other factors? Is there a 'group' that consistently report their timesheets in favour of The Company, and if so, how does this equate with their DBS history or any other commonalities?

These aren't questions to antagonize, just questions to help you rationalize your hypothesis. Which is exactly?

It's terribly sad how judgemental and bigoted some of the YANBU responses to the OP have been. God forbid any of you or your DCs find themselves in a difficult situation, resulting in a caution or charge, you'll be tarred for life as some shifty, bone idle, aggressive bastard.

Your OP does fit in with a certain way of thinking that one bad deed in earlier life automatically means that the person is not entitled to be accepted into everyday society.
And no I'm not talking about rape or murder before anyone jumps on me but more minor convictions.
I know people with this mindset, a person gets done for petty theft at 18 and is still treated as a criminal at the age of 42. Very holier than thou IMO and says more about the person with this mindset than the supposed criminal..

My ex-boss had served 15 years for murder, he was on life licence. He'd attained his degree in prison. Brilliant guy, brilliant boss.

Float, I don't mean to be rude but it doesn't take a post graduate degree to work out that if you treat your employees like shit then they will complain and if you don't pay them a living wage (which just above the minimum wage isn't) then rightly or wrongly they may fill their time sheets in incorrectly. There is no merit in what the op is saying and any social study carried out in this way would be massively unethical, fraught with anomalies and prove nothing.

Not quite sure why you need to access their DBS a while after their employment, other than nosiness. Could you explain this please?

Sorry float I think I misunderstood your post.

YABU

It is precisely this attitude that made me nervous about a DBS check. I have a caution from a few years ago, it has been the only time I was ever violent in my life and I was very unlucky in that the person accusing took things far too far.
Luckily the people who did the check were completely understanding as I had told them about it prior to the check and they have not judged me one bit.

One mistake does not mean a person should be written off or judged.

bear

I had a very similar experience to hedgehog.

Your attitude makes me feel ill, op. Let's hope you or your children never find themselves in this situation.

The police give out cautions too easily now. Unfortunately a lot of people have been affected by this.

Who really wants to work with someone with a conviction for theft?

How bloody depressing.

Plural of anecdote is not "data"

I did nick a creme egg once from the local shop. My DM made me go back and apologize and pay for it. I am now a TA. I think I should just confess all. I am clearly not up to the job.

Being prepared to talk about your colleagues criminal records on a public forum does, in fact, tell me quite a bit about you.

I'm not up to the job of managing a team of 40 around the UK, as I clearly have a problem with alcohol!

25 years ago I was arrested at a football match for being drunk (pissed as a fart to be fair).

This has in no way affected my career or the people I manage. I also provide supported lodgings for 16-18 year olds via Social Services and they know about my conviction. It's never been an issue for them.

And what OP is your role? Who reads your DBS check?

Most informative is your (abridged) quote:

"We employ a lot of people on not much more than minimum wage....These are all people who have been working for the company for a number of years"

So not much to be gained from working for your company OP...except for a Kick in the Ass.

Well, I'd hardly call rounding up their hours the crime of the century.

If we're going on anecdotal evidence, I know several people with a bit of a shady past, who only escape a criminal record because they were never caught. Most of them have cleaned up, have a family, and have settled down doing an honest days work.

Some are good role models I'd be happy for my child to be around, some are not. I also know people who are unethical and have done nothing illegal in their life, that I would not want my child around or looking up to.

That said, I would be willing to bet a substantial amount of money that if I gave you a false criminal record to a good honest worker, you would suddenly find that they were dishonest and lazy. It's how confirmation bias works.

I completely agree that the police give out cautions to easily now. They also try to convince people that those cautions won't appear on a DBS. This is not true. Cautions do show up on a DBS.

Moral of the story - don't ever accept a police caution.

I didn't even know You could refuse a caution. If I'd known I wouldn't have accepted mine but it was not explained properly at all to me.

My dh works with two reasonably well paid, university educated people who have been sacked for fiddling their timesheets, it has nothing to do with being less educated!

I employed a woman once who was giving me a load of trouble and then she vanishes, no resignation, just gone, a couple of days later her mugshot was in the papers as one of GMP's "most wanted". Never saw her again.

"I didn't even know You could refuse a caution. If I'd known I wouldn't have accepted mine but it was not explained properly at all to me"

I think a lot of people are unaware of this. Cautions favour the police but still show up on a DBS. Better to refuse them and take your chances with the courts IMO.

I think the police sometimes give out cautions when they have no chance whatsoever of the CPS taking on the case. People do not understand the DBS implications and it should be explained to them before they agree to take the caution.