Petition Remove drug-related convictions committed by under 21s from criminal records

I want convictions for drug-related offences committed by under 21s to be cleared from criminal records once the sentence has been served, so that young offenders have the opportunity to make positive changes to their lives and not continue to be penalised throughout their adult life.

More details

I was a young offender who was imprisoned for a drug conviction at 20. I am now 40 and have spent 10 years in recovery rebuilding my life. I am soon to study at postgraduate level and I am still having to disclose my offences 20 years later, which may affect my capacity to move on from my training into a professional setting.

I paid my debt to society and I feel like people should not continue to be penalised for crimes committed 20 years old. The impact of labelling someone as a criminal for the entirety of their lives would have a detrimental effect on an individual's capacity to not only move forward with their lives professionally, but also their belief that they can do so. This law doesn’t give people opportunities to make positive changes and move on.

This petition is closed This petition ran for 6 months

107 signatures

Show on a map

10,000

Date closed 17 February 2021
Get petition data (json format)

About petition data

The data shows the number of people who have signed the petition by country as well as in the constituency of each Member of Parliament. This data is available for all petitions on the site. It is not a list of people who have signed the petition. The only name that is shared on the site is that of the petition creator.