Dom Post on sex offenders register
April 30th, 2012 at 9:00 am by David FarrarThe Dom Post editorial:
Child sex offenders depend on anonymity and subterfuge to commit their sickening crimes. Restrict their ability to contact children, and the number of potential victims is reduced.
In the case of convicted offenders who have served their sentences but who still have the urge to stalk and groom children, a sex offenders register would help keep kids safe. It could, for example, prevent paedophiles from taking positions in community organisations in which they would have access to young people. It could also apply to those who have committed sexual offences against adults.
Police Minister Anne Tolley is therefore right to consider introducing such a register.
Yet Labour seem to think the status quo is working fine.
That said, there is no reason a register with the right checks and balances could not work successfully. Some will say it infringes the rights of those who have done their time, but the equation is simple: the rights of children to be kept safe from sexual predators come first.
Many sex offenders offend against their own family members, and hence get name suppression automatically. Relying on public media reports of offending is unwise, and they are not comprehensive.
Related posts:
- A sex offenders register
- Guest Post: Incarceration beyond sentence for habitual sex offenders – deeply problematic but necessary
- A domestic violence register
- Sex offenders in schools
April 30th, 2012 at 9:15 am
‘It could, for example, prevent paedophiles from taking positions in community organisations in which they would have access to young people.’
Vote:I’m pretty sure that people working with young persons already have to get Police vetting.
April 30th, 2012 at 9:36 am
“I’m pretty sure that people working with young persons already have to get Police vetting.”
Like school teachers and doctors? Do you ever read newspapers?
Vote:April 30th, 2012 at 9:38 am
So Chuck, explain how Police vetting is inferior to a register.
Vote:April 30th, 2012 at 9:41 am
DPF – a sex offender’s convictions are ALREADY available from the Ministry of Justice and Police.
How is a sex offender database, which Tolley has already said would not be available to the public, going to be any better to what is already available?
If organisations and employers are not using the existing services, how likely is it that they will begin using a new database? Probably not at all.
Any sex offender register will be undermined by the offender quietly and simply changing their name.
Vote:April 30th, 2012 at 9:41 am
I still think my clean, green “compost bin” model for penal reform would be a better solution than tying ourselves up in knots over sex offender registers, parole boards and detention orders.
For certain low-level offending you give people a kick in the arse that will motivate them – if they are smart – to see the error of their ways and change them.
For higher-level crime – where the ongoing safety of the public is a concern – they get thrown in the big black bin, and they never come out, not until they’ve overturned their conviction or they’re decomposed into fertiliser.
Vote:April 30th, 2012 at 10:03 am
I thought that was what the three strikes law was about?
I wonder why we should we allow them three strikes that means three kids lives stuffed up!
Vote:April 30th, 2012 at 10:16 am
The point I was making is that the existing system is not working with teachers add doctors with convictions of sexual offences against children still working with children.
Vote:April 30th, 2012 at 10:35 am
I guess the question is: to what extent would a register prevent these cases? What is different about a register as opposed to the present system?
Vote:April 30th, 2012 at 1:42 pm
I find a lot of this debate is conducted as if there is no living working examples of a register in the world anywhere. So here’s what one actually looks like for the area around the street where I live here in San Antonio, Texas.
You can see that the information is pretty comprehensive. You can see the nature of the conviction, and the age and sex of the victim. It’s not like you can confuse rampant paedophilia with someone who merely urinated in public and got done for it.
I’ve seen Mr Gary G Garrett, the fellow listed on this register as living on my street, out walking his dogs. Thanks to the Register I now know exactly who he is, where he lives, and what he looks like, and my daughters are much safer because of it.
If someone wants to be a vigilante, they should be prosecuted and punished. But I’d rather these ape-creatures had to live in fear of the odd angry parent than have nobody know they are a paedophile and have children put at risk.
Vote:April 30th, 2012 at 3:45 pm
Chris is on the mark, a closed register will be of limited value unless perhaps the other interest groups teachers etc had direct access to it. It would also have little deterrent value. An open register would be a strong deterrent. As I recall it few sex offenders did not have a prior conviction for a crime such as burglary, so in some respects a register may give a false sense of security to some interest groups.
Vote:April 30th, 2012 at 5:34 pm
Backster – Tolley could start by removing teachers as an occupational group from the Clean Slate Act, which allows all 98,000 teachers in this country to have their convictions concealed if they are more than 7 years old and did not involve a prison sentence (or sex offending).
It seems very very curious that Counsellors, Nannies and Social Workers have their entire criminal history disclosed no matter how long ago they offended, but our teachers get to hide their past after 7 years.
I wonder if the powerful teacher unions had a part to play in getting this exemption written into the legislation when the Clean Slate Act was introduced?
Vote: