Spent conviction

Spent conviction legislation allows the criminal records of offenders to be amended by removing some offences after a certain period of time.

[citation needed] The idea behind spent convictions schemes is to allow former offenders to 'wipe the slate clean' after a certain period of time, depending on the offence.

Spent conviction schemes allow criminal record checks to be amended to remove references to some offences after a period of non-offending.

Spent conviction schemes also generally excuse a former offender from disclosing that information.

[2] In the United Kingdom, spent convictions are governed by the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974.