More than one-third of men and almost one in 10 women in Scotland are likely to have at least one criminal conviction, a new report says.
The figures are derived from a Scottish Government analysis of data for 40-year-olds in Scotland.
They were revealed in a paper by researchers from the multi-university Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, examining possible changes to the law on when criminal convictions are considered spent.
It was produced in response to a Scottish Government consultation on the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (1974) to be launched this summer.
Concerns have been raised that rehabilitation periods are too long and offenders face stigma waiting for a criminal record to expire.
Disclosure Scotland processes more than one million applications for checks on criminal convictions for employers and other organisations each year, the research found.
Authors Paul McGuinness, Fergus McNeill and Sarah Armstrong, from the University of Glasgow, suggest reforms to the system including modification of the time limit for convictions to become spent and giving ex-offenders a certificate of rehabilitation.
A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "We do not hold a fixed view about how the regime might be modernised and reformed."
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