Evolution of requests of criminal records certificates in the United Kingdom

The extensive use of criminal background checks — the request for information on prior convictions for non-judicial purposes — creates obstacles to a fair reentry of individuals with criminal records. This dataset contains statistics on the number of requests of certificates of criminal records for employment and volunteering purposes for the three agencies that perform these checks in the United Kingdom: The Disclosure and Barring Service in England and Wales, Disclosure Scotland and AccessNI in Northern Ireland. This information has been extracted from Freedom of Information requests plus available reports from the three agencies. The data corresponds to natural years (Jan - Dec) for England and Wales and financial years (Apr-Mar) for Scotland and Northern Ireland.