But how can you do otherwise? Have a lottery where one day a shoplifter might get a life sentence, and the next day a serial murderer gets a £50 fine? The whole idea of making the punishment commensurate to the crime does put a price (or at least a price range) on it.

But I think you were perhaps referring to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act whereby after a period your crime may be "spent" and you no longer have to declare it on job applications. It takes a time for your crime to be "spent" and many ever are.

If someone who does something stupid when they're young (and a third of young men born in 1953 acquired a conviction (not including motoring offences) by the age of 30) finds they are barred from legal means of earning a living, people may feel that it's their own fault, but it leaves them with only illegal ways of acquiring money, and that's bad news for all of us. The tricky thing is getting the balance between protecting society by letting everyone know who has committed a crime, and protecting society by giving people a chance to put it behind them and become a productive member of society.