[Gaidi Sugu]

My fault; I meant 'convicted', not 'arrested'. One does not get a criminal record untill they are tried and convicted.

[Gaidi Sugu]

My friend, Abner Louima, the west African immigrant who was tortured by the police in New York a couple years back didn't get a break coz he was 'African' and not 'African American'. When a white guy sees you on the street, to him u are just another nigger. Well, untill you open your mouth betraying your true status as a foreigner, and then he'll probably treat u worse than an African American coz he figures no one's gonna care about a goddamn foreigner anyway.

[Tonnie]

GS, Louima was actually Haitian.
Anywayz its true, same applies to some of the people in deathrow for crimes committed while juveniles. And I think that stuff about not voting should be done away with. So a guy made a mistake when he was young and he learns from it, still he has his rights and freedoms and denying him the freedom to vote is tantamount to taking away his choice of representation.
It is this self righteous attitude of the American leadership that has brought about this none sense. They say 'we are all equal' while thinking 'but some are equal than others'

[Nubian queen]

Indeed on these shores, One is not required to declare a caution (first minor offence that does not lead to appearing in court ), secondly, once your conviction is spent (normally within 5 yrs, if the conviction did not include a prison sentence, which normally requires a rehabilitation period of 10yrs)one is under no obligation to declare it on a job application form, however certain proffessions are exempt e.g lawyers, doctors, teachers, accountants and social workers...I guess it's mainly people who by virtue of their proffession may come to owe others a fiduciary duty.

However, the recent spate of "telling pokies" on CVs is going to change all this. The Govt intends to set up a database which will allow employers to access any criminal conviction (s) of a prospective employee irrespective of whether or not it is spent! This will mean that once a criminal always a criminal and the stigma will obviously reduce one's chances of obtaining gainful employment. This proposal was set to come into place last summer, but it still hasn't. NACRO (National Association of Care and Rehabilitation of Offenders- the body that works towards rehabilitating crime offenders) is campaigning towards convincing the Govt to water down some of the proposals....achieve a balance by cutting some slack on firsts time offenders etc.

All this remains to be seen, but it is clear that ethnic minority will definately bear the brunt.