Sarahs Law - Do we need it? What do people think?

[mumof2monsters]

I feel that I would definitely want to know if someone in contact with my Dc had sex offences but there could be someone living in my road who is on a register for sex offences but I would not know.
I can understand that if we knew about all the sex offenders they may then go underground and police may not know where they are but what if one of them lived at the end of your road?

Would it change the way behaved if you did know?

I could quite easily access the database and ascertain if ther are registered sex offendeers living near me. But I haven't and I won't.
I would rather not know.

It begs the question of why there is a sex offender living on your road doesn't it ?
They aren't safe, we know that a large % re-offend.
Some will indeed go underground if their identities will known.
Pretty much everyone is in the wrong here.

Social services like the challenge of playing doctors and nurses with sex offenders.
Parole boards don't give a toss about what happens to the victims of re-offenders.
The government won't stand up to the Prison Officer unions, and wants to save money.
The media like the controversy. They win either way. If a known paedo gets a kid, they can call for a change in the law. If locals attack a paedo in the community they get fun headlines.
The police don't want this law because it's more work for them, but the sort that doesn't make their statistics look good.

And the rest of us are alos in the wrong for not supporting the idea that they should be locked up permanently. Reasons vary from the paedos "rights", though to the observed fact that most of us vote according to who will charge the least tax and screw with the economy least badly.
You can get a protest rally of tens of thousands for Iraq, or saving the whale, but locking paedos up could be held in a transit van.

There could easily be someone living on your road who is an abuser but hasn't been caught yet. So would be no practical help. Plus bloody dangerous if it means paedophiles go on the run. At least currently the police know where sex offenders are.

DC, I agree with very long sentences, but the stuff about professionals not giving a toss is just extremist nonsense. Esp. the media - I happen to be a journalist and no-one I have every known in this industry thinks about paedophiles in terms of fun headlines. (The News of the World did have a convicted and released murderer on staff, though.)

This one is difficult really but my instinct is to say no.

Firstly, people get put on the sex offenders register for a wide spectrum of offenses, but we all immediately thing paedophiles, which is not necessarily the case. (e.g. would you be able to make the distinction between a man who as a 17 year old had sex with a 15 year old who's dad found out and prosecuted and someone who preyed on young children and sexually abused them)

Secondly, although there have been several high profile cases where children have been abused/abducted/murdered by strangers, they are actually far more at risk from someone they know. Part of the reason why these stranger cases are so high profile is that they are actually pretty rare. You don't necessarily hear about all the people abused by a family member or a friend.

I think some very valid points here by everyone. I guess if I knew then I may just want my child to stay away from that person but I would not want that person victimised. I just worry about my kids. For example Ian Huntly was a caretaker at the school of Holly and Jessica and children may have considered him a trusted person but he had been arrested by police in the past for sexual offences. How did he manage to get a job in a school?

Ian Huntley was never convicted/ cautioned, so was not therefore a registered sex offender.
There was a lot of intelligence on him regarding concerns about him abut at that time the Police were not able to easily share that info.
Since then a new system has been introduced where by that info is more eaasily avaialable.
Soham was a wake up call in that respect.
The register is pretty much that just a list i don't really think it can monitor / control offenders. If they want to commit further offences they will do.

I would damn well want to know.

My niece was assaulted by a registered sex offender who lived next door to them. My aunt had no idea, he was a "great guy", became a family friend, sometimes even babysat the kids. Went on for YEARS. Niece now has split personality disorder and is basically fucked.

I'm not for victimizing people who have "paid their dues" but let's face it - recidivism is extremely high amongst paedophiles and sex offenders in general. It's a disease and so far, no one has really sorted out how to cure it.

Actually what happened with Huntley was that a senior police officer thought he'd play silly buggers with some rules he didn't like.
Two little girls died as a result.

Edam, I've worked as a journalist as well. Yes, of course almost no-one thinks in the terms I suggest. They rationalise their position to themselves, but my view is always to judge poeple by what they do, rather than what they say they do.
My model of the "professionals" not only explians their behaviour, it predicts it.
Edam, you model isn't even consistent with observed behaviour, let alone suggesting what they will do next.
Yes, the NoTW and Sun has criminals on board, and does stuff like sewually gloat over girls below the age of consent.
My model says people who work for those papers do it.
Who exactly do you think makes the decisions ?
Computers ?

we don't need sarah's law - we need paedophiles locked away for life. I don't understand why this isn't being campaigned for - the whole debate about sarah's law is because paedophiles are permanently dangerous.

The problem is that some paedophiles don't get caught reoffending, at we have to assume that some genuinely reform.
But the "professionals" give them all the benefit of the doubt.

IIRC Huntley wasn't actually the caretaker at Holly and Jessica's school. Not that that makes any difference to what he did to them, of course - but he could have been working anywhere, not necessarily a school, I think the connection was that his girlfriend was their teacher.

I think the main problems with Sarah's Law are:

1. Lynch mobs: throwing stones at a paediatrician's house, anyone? It'd happen again.
2. 90 per cent of child abuse committed by someone the child knows anyway. There's a risk of forgetting that because 'stranger danger' is so terrifying.
3. Statistics suggest 30 to 40 per cent of sex offenders in California just haven't registered and have effectively disappeared. So arguably Megan's Law has stopped the police being able to monitor them at all.

Actually Ian Huntley was caretaker at the school and maxine carr was a teaching assistant. Ian Huntley applied for the job using a different surname of nixon so police did not pick up on any other offences or cautions.

Paedophiles are deivious and I don't think Sarah's LAw witll stop them reoffending. They will maove on, give false details.
The only answer is to lock them away.

Not being a mum yet (three months to go) I feel I'd rather teach my children to be wary of strangers, to talk openly to me, even if they have been abused by a family member, that you never have secrets from your mum, and what is acceptible behaviour and what is not.

As has been said on here before, the vast majority of children who are abused, are abused by a member of their family or someone they know. I'm not sure Sarah's law would adequately protect my children. It may protect them from offenders with previous records, but as someone else has said here, there are plenty of people who haven't got a criminal record or anything to flag up their previous behaviour, such as this guy who was arrested today, and Sarah's law wouldn't protect my children from someone like that.

I would be concerned that Sarah's law might lull some in to a false sense of security, and the important lessons we need to teach our children would go un-taught. I seem to remember reading somewhere that Megan's law in the States is not as successful at preventing child abuse as they would have hoped. I don't feel it would help here at all.