Thursday 13 - Megan's Law

Thirteen Reasons I don't want Megans' Law/Sarahs' Law in the UK 1. What’s the point? If I discover a paedophile is living down the road to me, should I say to my kids “now, that Mr Jones at number 38* is a bad man and you should never go into his house with him, but if anyone else invites you in or asks you to go for a ride in their car, that’s just hunky-dory & fine”, 2. How will it help? Knowing where they live will not change the fact that they live there, so in what way is it helpful to know? 3. Vigilantes. IMO vigilante action is always bad. IM experience vigilante action invariably happens when a sex offender is “outed”, or even suspected in a community. Teaching our kids that they can solve problems through violence will damage our society beyond imagining. 4. Loss of control. The known outcome of vigilante action (and Megan’s Law in general) is that it drives paedophiles underground. People who would have previously followed their parole orders strictly & reported to the police every day/week/whatever will disappear from the police radar. Currently the police can keep an eye on these people, and local schools/leisure centres etc are given their details if considered necessary. If they refuse to comply with the sex offenders register rules, the only way to find these people is after they re-offend. 5. Who & what will be available? Are we intending to publish the complete sex offenders register? Because it’s very long and contains people who have committed offences such as Rape (a 17 year old boy having consensual sex with his 17 year old girlfriend), Public Indecency (a married couple having sex in their local woods), Buggery (a 19 & 21 year old gay couple having sex in their own home) , Voyeurism (a 16 year old lad watching his next door neighbour get undressed) and Exposure (“mooning” out of a car window).** Or are we going to pick out particularly bad crimes? Which ones? Who decides? What if my child is attacked by someone on the register, but not listed publicly – can I sue? 6. House prices. Ok, it’s incredibly superficial, but in a country where most peoples quality of life is completely controlled by their house price, the public register is going to cause absolute havoc. 90%, 95% or even 100% mortgages are not uncommon. If your house price drops below your mortgage value the bank can foreclose & you will be homeless. If the register is published there is no doubt that nearby house prices will plummet. I remember the 80’s where 1000’s of people were made homeless each week. I know many of them who are only now just about getting their life sorted out 20 years later. And it will make the prices not only drop, but fluctuate wildly. If I decide to buy a new house next week, search the register for a good place and pay a premium to be safe, then a week after I move in, Mr Smith the nasty rapist is released from prison and moves in next door. I immediately lose £50,000 off my house value! 7. Getting it wrong. Remember when the News of The World first did their own little outing experiment? A well respected, committed & life-saving paediatrician was beaten & forced out of home because mobs are stupid. Another person was beaten & terrorised because they looked a bit like a paedophile and another because they shared a name! I don’t want my kids growing up in a society that supports such actions. 8. What the register doesn’t include. Like all these things, the register only tells you about people that have been caught, convicted & served a sentence for a crime. Not much help really for protecting yourself or your kids from the guy who scares his victims so much they never tell, or the one who has not offended before, or the one who has killed all of his previous victims and not been caught…. 9. It’s pandering to a misconception. Namely, that strangers are bad & out to get you, and that the streets are not safe & violent sexual crimes are on the increase in our horrible modern world. ALL WRONG! The vast majority of sexual and violent crimes (especially against children) are committed within the family or by a family friend. The number of children snatched off the street at random by a paedophile has not changed at all since records began, remaining steady at 4 per year on average. 10. It misses too much out. Only people convicted since 1997 are on the register. Any offenders from prior to then will retain their anonymity. 11. It doesn’t solve the problem. We need to be looking at who becomes a sexual offender, and what warning signs are there BEFORE they offend, not get hung up on who has done something already. The register will create a false feeling of safety. 12. It demonizes the criminal. No, I’m not in favour of paedophilia, but nor do I feel that our current demonisation of anyone on the sex offenders register is a good thing. Many of those people live good, useful and socially responsible lives at the present. That will be denied them if the register became public – a loss for them, their family and society as a whole. 13. It makes a mockery of our justice system. Whatever happened to Justice is blind? Where will it stop? Why should it only be sex offenders that we know about? What about violent criminals? Burglars? Drug users? They are all dangers to my home & family’s safety and security. And when we have all those public registers available, who will be the first to say how complicated the whole process is, and why not do something more obvious – branding perhaps. *This is a ficticious Mr Smith @ no.38. I have no idea who lives at no. 38 and am sure that all Mr Smith's are very nice men! **All real cases

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