Jailed over traffic offence record when applying for jobs

[cheong88]

Helping a friend of mine to check..hopefully there are some HR specialists here...

When applying for jobs, if an applicant has been jailed before over traffic offence, must she declare on the form that she has been convicted by a court for a crime before? and will that affect her chances of landing the job? seeing that it has no repercussions on her future job performance as she is not jailed for ''honesty'' reasons like criminal breach of trust etc....

And for myself..someone who has been sentenced to DB for a few days as a NSmen...will my new employer know about my sentence but i doubt that is a crime right?

Originally Posted by cheong88

Helping a friend of mine to check..hopefully there are some HR specialists here...

When applying for jobs, if an applicant has been jailed before over traffic offence, must she declare on the form that she has been convicted by a court for a crime before? and will that affect her chances of landing the job? seeing that it has no repercussions on her future job performance as she is not jailed for ''honesty'' reasons like criminal breach of trust etc....

And for myself..someone who has been sentenced to DB for a few days as a NSmen...will my new employer know about my sentence but i doubt that is a crime right?

Jail - yes. Then again, if the employer doesn't perform background checks properly, no worries.

DB - no. If DB sentence is over x days, it is considered equivalent to a jail sentence and you'll know it.

[cheong88]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Jail - yes. Then again, if the employer doesn't perform background checks properly, no worries.

DB - no. If DB sentence is over x days, it is considered equivalent to a jail sentence and you'll know it.

as for the DB...so you mean if got criminal record they officers inside will let you know when you're released? but i remember i got take mugshots...hopefully that is not for police records...

Pardon my ignorance, I haven't heard of anybody jailed for traffic offense unless it is also criminal in nature.

If it's running red lights, speeding and parking offenses, why would that land someone in jail? What did she do?

Originally Posted by cheong88

Helping a friend of mine to check..hopefully there are some HR specialists here...

When applying for jobs, if an applicant has been jailed before over traffic offence, must she declare on the form that she has been convicted by a court for a crime before? and will that affect her chances of landing the job? seeing that it has no repercussions on her future job performance as she is not jailed for ''honesty'' reasons like criminal breach of trust etc....

And for myself..someone who has been sentenced to DB for a few days as a NSmen...will my new employer know about my sentence but i doubt that is a crime right?

[cheong88]

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Pardon my ignorance, I haven't heard of anybody jailed for traffic offense unless it is also criminal in nature.

If it's running red lights, speeding and parking offenses, why would that land someone in jail? What did she do?

repeated drink driving

Originally Posted by Unregistered

Jail - yes. Then again, if the employer doesn't perform background checks properly, no worries.

criminal records check is a very easy check, i doubt employers will miss that out for background checks.

if you lie and get terminated after the check, its worse - might get blacklisted from coy and possibly even industry.

anyway, what i know is that if you get charged officially for a minor offence, the records will get void off the system after 3 years if you do not commit any offence again. but im not sure what constitute minor offences.

Think your friend in the eyes of the law has convicted of crime so she has to declare. Unless she's jailed over fatal accident due to careless driving and not drink driving then it would be an offence and dun need to declare?

Anyway she has served her time so she is still a good person.

For criminal records considered spent... It should be after five years

Originally Posted by cheong88

as for the DB...so you mean if got criminal record they officers inside will let you know when you're released? but i remember i got take mugshots...hopefully that is not for police records...

No la DB is not considered criminal record ...doubt any company will call up army to check

but seriously if people declare that they have been charged before and have criminal records, will any company really employ them?

I have read quite a bit of this on whether road traffic offence is a criminal record. Let me try to dispel the misinformation. I was also jailed for a road traffic offence, so I can understand how some of you feel. not to worry you will be much more relieved by the end of this post.

What is a criminal record?
A criminal record is a record of conviction by the court given to someone found guilty of a registrable offence. This is found in the three schedules, basically a list of offences that are registrable. They are among things like theft, cheating etc. For my own purposes I was reading under the road traffic act, and that there are only two that exist in the list and they are for causing death with a vehicle and the other is taking other people's vehicle without consent. So drink driving and others are not inside which is good news.

Drink driving is not a reg offence!
So drink driving is NOT a registrable offence and there is no court record of the conviction. Only the involved departments such as TP will enforce the keeping of the record internally.

"Amendment to the bill"
A bit of where this was coming from. In 2005, they felt it was not necessary to stigmatize people who commit minor or regulatory offences which was why the made that amendment. this is the excerpt of what I have read and think its the most important;

"21 The effect of section 7F is that when a person is asked about his criminal record, that question will be taken to refer only to a criminal record as defined in the RCA, that is, the record of convictions for registrable offences. A person who has committed only non-registrable offences can say he has no criminal record. A person who has committed some registrable and some non-registrable offences is only obliged to disclose his registrable offences. MHA is currently working with all Ministries to ensure that the list of registrable offences is updated and contains the more serious offences, leaving the minor regulatory offences as non-registrable. This approach ties with what Government is doing though the Ministry of Law which, together with the Attorney-General's Chambers, is spearheading a drive to decriminalise minor, regulatory offences."

based on what it was saying, if you committed non-registrable offences you can safely say you have no criminal record. This should apply when you are looking for a job when they ask whether you have a conviction.

I even went to the extent of calling the criminal records office to check just to give me a sense of security. It was eventually good news for me so far.

Hope this will let you guys understand the differences and reduce your worries. And I could understand totally how you guys feel those who are jailed for road traffic offences. I have just came out of jail two days ago and it was one of the worst time in my life...........