New Victorian parliament warned against making sex offenders register public
Victoria’s new parliament is being warned about the dangers of making the sex offenders register public.
The Derryn Hinch Justice Party, which could have as many as four members in the upper house, is strongly in favour of the move.
“There’s not much sympathy towards bad sex offenders,” Neil Mitchell said.
“It will be resisted.
“I have reservations about it.”
Criminal defence lawyer Rob Stary told Neil he didn’t believe a public list was necessary.
“I don’t think there’s any demonstrated need,” Mr Stary said.
“The danger is, and has been seen in the UK and US, that sometimes there’s a vigilantism.
“Most people would say, we should leave the monitoring to people who have the expertise, we don’t want to create further trouble.
“We know statistically that most sex offenders commit offences within the family.
“So you don’t want to run the risk of identifying innocent children.”
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“We espouse the philosophy that if a person pays their debt to society, they’ve got a right to re-integrate into the community once they’ve paid their debt,” Mr Stary added.