Summary
The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974 (ROA) enables most cautions and convictions to become ‘spent’ (or legally ignored) after a ‘rehabilitation period’. After this period, a person with a ‘spent’ caution or conviction is not required to declare it when applying for most jobs, unless the role is ‘exempt’ from the Act.
The tables in the provided document detail the rehabilitation periods of the more common sentences. For custodial sentences the rehabilitation period includes an additional ‘buffer period’ that runs from the end of the sentence. This ‘buffer period’ is determined by the length of total sentence imposed.
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