Sexual offending and employability barriers

• In Event: Sexual offending and victimization

Abstract

Employability is important for reducing reoffending. Unfortunately, those with a prior sexual offence find employment opportunities challenging. As such, knowing when to disclosure a prior offence is important. This talk will examine employability biases based upon two empirical studies. The first study will highlight the problems associated with a Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check disclosure. The second study will examine the effectiveness of a self-disclosure prior to a hiring decision. To examine this, we firstly investigated employability decision making when a prior sexual conviction is disclosed. In the first study, we were interested in whether potential employers were more likely to reject a candidate after a DBS check. As such, we asked potential employers to select the most appropriate candidate based upon their application form, CV’s and interview notes. We then provided a DBS check with either no prior offence (control) or a prior sexual offence (rape, sexual activity with a child, or possession of indecent images of children). We found that those with a contact offence (rape 57%, sexual activity with a child 80%), received higher rejection rates than those with a possession of indecent images of children (49%) conviction. In the second study, we examined a disclosure during the written application stage reduced reject rates. We found that it did across all conditions: rape [self-disclosure 63% vs no disclosure 70%], sexual activity with a child [self-disclosure 52% vs no disclosure 84%], or possession of indecent images of children [self-disclosure 23% vs no disclosure 69%]. Qualitative decision-making responses and implications for research and policy will be further discussed.

Author

• Cody Normitta Porter, UWE Bristol