In Victoria, the release of your criminal record is governed by the Victoria Police Information Release Policy. The history includes findings of guilt and convictions, however findings of guilt without a conviction, including those findings of guilt that only have a good behaviour bond imposed, are also released with criminal history checks.

This information can be released for up to 10 years for adults and five years for children, but this isn’t the law – the police actually have discretion as to whether they release any information past the 10-year mark or not, and is informal, based on police policy. For the most part, after 10 years, the information is not released.

     Why it’s confusing
You might be thinking that if you were found guilty without a conviction, that such findings will not appear in your criminal history checks. Not so. In the 300,000 to 500,000 criminal history checks performed every year in Victoria alone, it’s time this process got a bit clearer and fairer.

     Who ‘deserves’ it and who doesn’t
Not everyone with a criminal record is a serious offender, but stealing a carton of milk and aggravated assault really are different, and that criminal record doesn’t explain anything, nor does it offer context for the offending – all of which matter in a person’s life, particularly when their future employment is being hung in the balance.

Lapses in judgement, difficult periods in life, and accidents all contribute to criminal charges, but it doesn’t mean that those people were going to head off into a life of crime and debauchery. In fact, most people who commit crimes – caught or not caught – go on to live productive lives.

Judges take your life and circumstances, risks of reoffending and changes made to your life into consideration when deciding whether to record a conviction or not – this is part of a judge’s job, and we rely heavily on their discretion to decide if a person should have a criminal conviction listed against their name or not.

The Victorian Police policy completely ignores the judge’s ruling on guilt without a conviction by leaving it in the criminal record accessible by employers, embassies and other bodies. 

This completely undermines the decisions of Judges and Magistrates on findings of guilt without conviction. This is a police policy issue that confuses the usefulness of criminal records and seriously impacts on people’s lives, jobs, and families. It is not trivial, despite many of the offences being so. A criminal record is now being used to judge someone’s character, instead of alerting the potential of a dangerous or unsuitable person.

Offenders are being refused jobs, fertility services, travel, and sometimes housing, based on a criminal history that is often irrelevant and unfair. This is a social cost – shame, lack of opportunity and other factors contribute to lower likelihoods of these ‘criminals’ fitting into a life free of their guilt-without-conviction history – the way it should be.

There is no Australia-wide policy for the release of criminal histories. Efforts are being made currently to change this, particularly by the Standing Committee of Attorneys General (SCAG) to create a broad, federal spent convictions scheme in Australia. A specific recommendation by SCAG is that unless an exemption applies (for example child sex offences), guilty findings without convictions should not be included under the definition of a ‘conviction’ for the spent convictions scheme, and not made available on criminal histories.

Most elements of the exemptions are covered by other legislation in Victoria – for example, the Working With Children Act 2005 and the Private Security Act 204.

The discrimination of people with guilt without convictions must stop in Victoria with legislation to immediately stop this unfair, unjust practice, and to stop impeding good people who made mistakes from being productive members of our society.

To help create change, contact your local member of parliament to voice your views on this important issue. It affects all of us!