Old Convictions Never Die, They Just Fade Away: The Permanency of Convictions and Cautions for Criminal Offences in the UK

摘要

Criminality information sharing in the UK can take place in many contexts and with many motivations (although the latter are mostly concerned with public protection, or the prosecution process following the commission of an (alleged) offence by an individual who is then the subject of the criminality information itself). Criminality information can be broadly defined to include categories such as allegations, records of arrest and/or charge and/or prosecution, statements by witnesses and (alleged) offenders themselves, cautions, convictions, records of penalty notices for disorder, sentencing reports, tax and/or benefit investigations, the placement of individuals on barring lists, and covert or overt police surveillance intelligence-as well as more peripheral 'intelligence' such as anti-social behaviour orders and reports of anti-social behaviour itself (despite the seemingly non-criminal nature of this behaviour by its very definition).