A NEW electronic tagging system for monitoring high-risk sex offenders, including the use of GPS technology, is likely following publication of a report on management of sex offenders from the Department of Justice.
A discussion forum on the report, held in Dublin yesterday, heard that all sex offenders registered with the Garda will be assessed within the next three months, and the risk they pose of reoffending established.
Supt John McCann told the forum 1,090 sex offenders were registered with the Garda. In recent weeks over 50 members of the force had been trained in the assessment of sex offenders and the assessments were being carried out at the moment, he said.
All the data would then be returned to the central agency, and this would permit the Garda to focus on those considered to be at high risk of reoffending.
The forum, opened by Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern, was based on a report drawn up by representatives of the department, the Garda, the Prison Service, the Probation Service and Cosc, the body dealing with domestic and gender-based violence.
Mr Ahern said the problem of managing sex offenders had to be addressed through “a clinical and evidence-based approach”, and the purpose of publishing the report was to stimulate a reasoned dialogue. Sex offenders were not a homogeneous group, he said. “They commit different types of offences for different reasons. They also come from a variety of social classes and age groups and are a much more diverse group than the ‘typical criminal’.”
He pointed out that the majority of sex offenders convicted and sentenced did not offend again, having a significantly lower recidivist rate than other former prisoners. “What we need to do is identify those persons that pose a higher risk of reoffending and concentrate our efforts on them,” Mr Ahern added.
The measures would include standardised, evidence-based risk assessments specifically designed for sex offenders, which would be offered to the court at sentencing stage. There would be further risk assessments in prison to identify the type of rehabilitation programme suitable for the offender. The sex offender programmes in prison were being redesigned to be more flexible and suitable to a variety of sex offenders, in order to increase uptake.
Under the new regime sex offenders would be assessed for risk again prior to their release to assess what risk they might pose, if any, when back in the community.
“Research clearly indicates that perhaps the most critical time is the period when an offender moves from prison into the community,” he said. “We have to focus on this transitional period.”
This could include a case conference to devise a strategy to reintegrate the offender into the community, in which risk management committees, involving the Garda and the Probation Service, would monitor high-risk offenders.
They would have new statutory powers to carry out this task, so that they could apply to the court to impose new conditions on sex offenders subject to post-release supervision. Such orders could include the use of GPS technology, and Mr Ahern said he had asked his officials to look at the legislative and administrative implications of monitoring certain higher-risk sex offenders in this way. Jimmy Martin, chairman of the working group which wrote the discussion document on the Management of Sex Offenders, said research in Northern Ireland suggested that only 5 per cent of all those convicted of sex offences had a high risk of offending again, with about 50 per cent being at very low risk.