Australians will soon be able to see whether paedophiles live in their neighbourhood after $7.8 million dollars was allocated to establish a National Public Register of Child Sex Offenders in this week’s Federal Budget.
The government says it hopes the list will provide a “nationally consistent approach to the public release of information about child sex offenders”.
Sex offending against children (or adults) is a sensitive topic but the a publicly available national register raises some serious issues:
- Will the “name and shame” approach simply encourage vigilantes?
- The US and the UK have similar lists but they have not reduced the rates of recidivism of sex offenders
- An Australian Institute of Criminology survey in 2017 found 80 per cent of parents acknowledged that a register would not prevent future sexual assault
- What about the well-established legal principal that once an offender’s gaol term ends, they’ve discharged their obligation to society?
What do you think?
Read the Law Society Journal’s report on the issue here.
See what the register might look like here.