| Summary: | In the United Kingdom, there has been a rising interest in information pertaining to citizens’ criminal history, coupled with a lack of legal protection from discrimination for people with an unspent criminal record. This has paved the way for scholarship exploring the ‘collateral consequences’ of a criminal record. Yet beyond the field of employment, there is limited empirical evidence about the impact of a criminal record on access to civic opportunities. Using a mixed-method qualitative research design, this thesis investigates the impact of a criminal record on access to higher education in the United Kingdom. The findings are analysed using a multi-level conceptual framework, drawing on literature related to ‘risk’, ‘responsibilisation’, discretionary decision-making and stigma.
An analysis of 143 UK universities’ admissions policies uncovers how 103 institutions require applicants to disclose information about their unspent criminal record, sometimes along with information about allegations or ongoing investigations, to enrol on a non-regulated degree. Once a disclosure has been made, universities can withdraw an applicant’s offer to study or restrict their access to university services. An analysis of data from an email correspondence study including 18 universities and semi-structured interviews with ten university admissions staff, illustrates how admissions staff act as ‘street level bureaucrats’, by making discretionary decisions about an applicant’s admission. In the absence of training or organisational guidelines, employees appear to borrow criminal justice logics, assessing applicants’ ‘risk’ and ‘remorse’ to determine their suitability to enrol on a degree. Interviews with 13 applicants with a criminal record, provide an insight into the experiences of navigating higher education bureaucracy with a criminal record and uncover the powerful role universities have in producing and reproducing criminal record stigma.
The discrimination towards applicants with a criminal record in the higher education sector is often justified through logics that see ‘identifying’ and ‘managing’ applicants with a criminal record as an effective way to protect the public and the institution’s reputation. Whilst not denying that universities do have an important role to ensure that staff and students can work and study in a safe environment, this thesis argues that excluding or restricting access for applicants with a criminal record is an ineffective and disproportionate strategy to achieve this aim. Consequently, this thesis recommends future research looks to establish how universities can adopt a whole institution approach to safeguarding, to move away from practices that seek to limit access to education for criminalised people. This should be coupled with research that explores how the United Kingdom can effectively reform legislation, to ensure people with convictions are afforded greater protection from discrimination in civic life.
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