Child rapists taken off Sex Offenders' Register in secret Lets hope this does not become a precedent for any other countries...
I’m uncomfortable with this, and not just because it flies in the face of the philosophy behind our justice system. If ‘serving your time’ is to mean that then there has to be a possibility for reformed criminals to be able to move on with their lives. The only concern I would have is whether such individuals would come up in background checks for jobs involving access to children, and my understanding is that the situation described in the article doesn’t change that. As long as such background checks can be done for certain jobs with access to children, and it is my understanding that this will remain the case, then I don’t have a problem with making it possible for those who have served their to have an opportunity to move on. I’m probably going to be in the minority though.
i think thats what the article is gatting at once you leave behind the mob mentality people seem to catch when they are dealing with child abusers. The problem people are having is that the names are being kept secret, and there is no telling what a person might do once they inherently know they are not being monitored by any sort of jutice system. Im sure most of them will go on with their lifes happy to be rid of shuch a tainting title, but I know better than to think all of them are going to stay on the straight and narrow.
There is alot of variables to consider, but the fact of the matter is that the authorities could have found a better way to minimize damage done to people on those lists other than secretly removing their names from them and hoping for people not to have an issue with that.
Given that, afaiui, such lists only existed in the first place due to public pressure I’m not too worried about names being removed. As long as the background checks for child-related jobs continues to work I don’t care to be honest.
How about notifying parents that a sex criminal lives near their school? Thats what the sex offender web sites are used for. IMHO it's a safety issue and taking names off the list publicly would cause a blizzard of complaints from parents and new homeowners who want that info before they buy in a neighborhood.
