Vigilante fears for sex offender website

15 Oct 2012, 7:15 pm   -   Source: AAP
Share This
0 
+ Comment
2
The Community Protection Website provides the public with photographs and certain information on the state's most dangerous and serious repeat sexual offenders. (Getty Images)

The Community Protection Website provides the public with photographs and certain information on the state's most dangerous and serious repeat sexual offenders. (Getty Images)

A Western Australian government website revealing the state's most dangerous sexual offenders may lead to vigilantism, a top lawyer and a victim support advocate have warned.

RELATED

A Western Australian government website revealing the state's most dangerous sexual offenders may lead to vigilantism, a top lawyer and a victim support advocate have warned.

The Community Protection Website went live after a few technical hiccups on Monday and can provide the public with photographs and certain information on the state's worst sexual offenders, including serial pedophiles.

It is the first such website in Australia and is divided into three "tiers", the top one being sex offenders whose whereabouts are unknown to police.

Criminal Lawyers Association of WA president Linda Black said there was already a good system in place whereby anyone working with children needed police clearances.

Ms Black said she had concerns the new website could lead to vigilantism and cases of mistaken identity.

"You get released a photograph and then you are able to hopefully find the right person, and then when you do, I'm not sure exactly what it is that the government expects you to do with the information," she told AAP.

"My primary concern is, once people have this information, what is anticipated they will do other than try and run the bloke out of town? "The legislation boldly claims it will help us protect our children, but I've read the legislation twice now and I still don't see how."

Adults Surviving Child Abuse president Cathy Kezelman agreed there was a risk of vigilantism.

"There are a number of dangers with a website like this," Dr Kezelman told AAP.

"There's a risk of what people do with the information and whether there's a sense of community panic if they find out there's an offender living in the area and decide to take the situation into their own hands, so it needs to be very well policed."

Photographs of the offenders may be shared privately - not publicly - and are watermarked with the name of the person that conducted the original search to deter redistribution.

"But of course, once you privately distribute it, if one of those people to whom you've given it privately then publishes it, it's then going to be available to all and sundry," Ms Black said.

Dr Kezelman said it was also a concern that the website might include sex offenders with a chance of rehabilitation.

"You don't want people to be labelled forever," she said. However, the website would help raise general awareness of risks to children in the community, Dr Kezelman said.

She said the most useful aspect of the website was the third "tier" of publication, which allowed parents or guardians to ask police whether a specific person, who had regular unsupervised contact with their child or children, was a reportable sex offender.

Under the second "tier" of publication, interested parties can search for dangerous and high-risk sex offenders who live in their suburb or surrounding suburbs, but first they must provide their driver's licence number.

Western Australia

  • Follow us: 
  • Follow us on Facebook
  • Follow us on Twitter
  • Follow us on Youtube

Your Comments

whats the website called?

madds - from perth, 8 months ago

what is the website called ? and how can we get on to it. instead of people making it so bloody difficult!

SO

Leara - from Victoria, 8 months ago

So that will be good for western australia because wont they all just move interstate where they arent on a database? Queensland I'm sure has more than its fair share.

Join the Discussion

Name
City / Suburb E.g. Artarmon, Sydney
Title
Comment
You have characters remaining.
Validation
What's this?
This is a captcha-picture. It is used to prevent mass-access by robots.
All submitted comments become the property of SBS. They are moderated, so we reserve the right to edit comments and remove HTML tags. Not all submitted comments will be published. Publication does not mean we endorse the opinions expressed. Please read our terms and conditions for more information.