Compelling sex offenders to engage in prison treatment will not work - Minister

A proposed amendment to the Sexual Offenders Bill seeking to compel convicted sex offenders to engage with treatment programmes while in prison will not have the desired benefit, the Minister for Justice has said.

Minister Helen McEntee said, in circumstances including where some convicted offenders continue to maintain they are innocent or express no remorse, the evidence from the probation services is that compelling their engagement with assessment and treatment programmes yields no benefit.

She accepted concerns by Independent TD Denis Naughten, who proposed the amendment, that less than one in eight jailed offenders engage with assessment and treatment programmes despite an expansion of such services since 2016 and statistics indicating that offenders who engage are three and a half times less likely to reoffend.

The Minister was speaking during a committee stage debate before the Oireachtas Justice Committee of the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Bill 2021.

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Aimed at strengthening the management and monitoring of sex offenders in the community, the Bill provides for tighter notification requirements under the sex offenders register, permits gardaí to release information on sex offenders in certain circumstances and allows for electronic tagging as well as fingerprinting and photographing of offenders.

Other significant features include an explicit provision for courts to prohibit a sex offender from working with children and vulnerable adults and a legislative basis for the assessment and management of risk posed by sex offenders across teams involving probation officers, An Garda Síochána and Tusla.

The Bill also permits gardaí to disclose information relating to persons on the sex offender register in extenuating circumstances, such as a serious threat to public safety, and for gardaí to apply for the discharge and variation of a sex offender order.

It allows for electronic monitoring of sex offenders to assist in ensuring their compliance with a sex offender order or post release supervision order and places the Sex Offenders Risk and Assessment and Management (SORAM) monitoring process for high-risk offenders on a statutory footing.

During the committee stage of the Bill on Tuesday, the Minister agreed to consider, prior to the report stage, a number of matters raised in amendments from Deputy Naughten and Sinn Féin TD Martin Kenny.

She agreed with Deputy Naughten about the importance of ensuring technology companies such as Google are clear that the 'right to be forgotten' should not result in the delisting of information such as court reports about the conviction of sexual offenders.

In response to the TD’s concerns that the disclosure of information about offenders is too restricted and the Bill should set out a formal process for such disclosure, the Minister said that while there is no formal process in the Bill, the intention is that any concerns may be reported to gardaí.

If gardaí believe there is any risk posed and there is a need to disclose information, they can do so, she said.

Before report stage, she would consider the Deputy’s proposal that convicted sex offenders should be restricted from employment in the security industry in addition to being restricted from working with children and vulnerable adults.

Deputy Kenny’s concerns included that the Bill should be clearer in relation to the reporting obligations of offenders, including clarifying those are not confined to reporting just to Garda divisional headquarters.

The Minister said the intention is that offenders will report to local stations and the obligations will be made clearer.

The Bill has now passed the committee stage with some amendments and will return to the Dáil later for the report stage.