It depends entirely on the law. 

If the punishment for a sex offence is that the offender is placed on the
sex offenders register *which is then made public* then no-one can have any
objections to this happening, provided the law has been properly debated in
parliament.

As it stands today there are crimes for which one appears on the register
"for a certain time period" after which the register has your entry removed.
Making such entries public seems to me to lack the fairness for which the
British legal system is rightly or wrongly praised globally.

The facts of the register are that it contains what I might term "real"
offenders, who commit genuine and horrible crimes of an unpleasant nature
against people ranging from adult to child.  We are, of course, currently
"horrified" by sexual offences because they are this decade's "shocking
crime".  I am more shocked by Harold Shipman.

There are then much more minor incidents.  High profile arrests such as
Glitter have created a huge number of offenders whose crime was to view
pictures of young persons in an unclothed state.  That it is a crime to do
so is beyond dispute.  It is on the statute books.  That these people should
not have done it is equally beyond dispute.  It is not pleasant to think of
young persons posing for such pictures, and I know several victims of such
photography who are emotionally harmed by (and this is important) not the
experience of posing, but the fact that their pictures have been freely
distributed on the net.

A person who views a picture can be wholly harmless, and probably should not
appear on the register at all.  Others who view them are not harmless.  They
should be.  How does one judge that and then release that identifying data
into the public domain.

Today's media is "paedophile crazy". We have already had a case of a
paediatrician having had a brick hurled through her window by some moron who
saw "paed" and got a brick.  Whatever someone has done to be on the register
they deserve as much protection, hard is that can be to accept at times, as
those who have never transgressed in their lives.

I spy a media feeding frenzy, here.

-----Original Message-----
From: This list is for those interested in Data Protection issues
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ibrahim Hasan
Sent: 17 January 2006 11:14
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [data-protection] List 99 and teachers

I have been following the media frenzy around Ruth Kelly's decision to allow
a teacher convicted of indecent assault to work in a school.
 
The Times has had some interesting articles from both sides:
 
Heather Brooke argued yesterday in the paper (sorry cant find link) that the
Sex Offenders Register should be made public.
 
Others are more circumspect:
 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22369-1988729,00.html
 
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2088-1986093,00.html
 
When you like behind the headlines of the Gibson case, the matter does not
seem entirely black and white!
 
Would be interesting to know what colleagues think. 
 
Ibrahim Hasan
 
Act Now Training
www.actnow.org.uk
Information Law Training for the Public Sector
 

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