The legal position of convicted offenders is complex, as are the social consequences that can result from a criminal conviction. After they have served their sentences, custodial or not, convicted offenders often continue to be subject to numerous restrictions, in many cases indefinitely, due to their criminal conviction. In short, criminal convictions can have adverse legal consequences that may affect convicted offenders in several aspects of their lives. In turn, these legal consequences can have broader social consequences. Legal consequences are often not formally part of the criminal law, but are regulated by different areas of law, such as administrative law, constitutional law, labour law, civil law, and immigration law. For this reason, they are often obscured from judges as well as from defendants and their legal representatives in the courtroom. The breadth, severity and longevity and often hidden nature of these restrictions raises the question of whether offenders' fundamental rights are sufficiently protected. This book explores the nature and extent of the legal consequences of criminal convictions in Europe, Australia and the USA. It addresses the following questions: What legal consequences can a criminal conviction have? How do these consequences affect convicted offenders? And how can and should these consequences be limited by law?

Table Of Contents

1. Introduction 

Sonja Meijer, Harry Annison and Ailbhe O'Loughlin



PART I

CRIMINOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON LEGAL CONSEQUENCES OF CRIMINAL CONVICTION

2. Collateral Consequences of a Conviction in Spain 

Elena Larrauri and Marti Rovira

3. Incapacitation: Salutary Protection of Society or the Definative Elimination of People? 

Marijke Malsch



PART II

LEGAL LIMITS ON THE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES OF CRIMINAL CONVICTION

4. The 'Stain of Conviction' – Penal Theory, Fundamental Rights and Criminal Records in Germany 

Christine Morgenstern

5. Proportionality as a Constraint on the Legal Consequences of Conviction 

Sonja Meijer

6. The Detrimental Legal Consequences of a Conviction in Hungary 

Krisztina Lukács and Dávid Vig

7. Challenging the Legitimacy and Limits of Criminal Background Checks in Switzerland 

Anna Coninx

8. Relevance of a Criminal Record to Employment Opportunity: A Greek Example for Comprehensive Law Reform 

Dimitra Blitsa and Anna Kivrakidou



PART III

DANGEROUS OFFENDERS AND LEGAL CONSEQUENCES OF CRIMINAL CONVICTION

9. Fundamental Rights and Indeterminate Sentencing in England and Wales: The Value and Limits of a Right to Rehabilitation 

Harry Annison and Ailbhe O'Loughlin

10. Intensive Supervision of Sexual and Violent Offenders in Germany 

Axel Dessecker

11. Bifurcation and Redemption in France 

Martine Herzog-Evans

12. Australia's Expanding Jurisprudence of Risk: A Critical Analysis of Australian Preventive Detention and Post-Sentence Supervision Systems 

Patrick Keyzer and Darren O'Donovan



PART IV

JUVENILE OFFENDERS AND LEGAL CONSEQUENCES OF CRIMINAL CONVICTION

13. The Albatross of Juvenile Criminal Records 

Nicola Carr

14. Dutch Criminal Record Screening in Light of International Children's Rights Standards

Elina van 't Zand-Kurtovic