Protecting Children from Sexual Abuse – or Insisting on the 'Right to Know'? The Great Public Sex Offender Register Debate

By Dr Gwenda Willis and Kim Workman

Last Sunday, we took part in a public debate  on the issue of a public register for sex offenders, one of the major election platforms of the Sensible Sentencing Trust.  We were both grateful for the opportunity to present another perspective on the issue, and for the warm reception we received from the organisers.  It’s an issue for public dialogue that affects us all.  There was a spread of opinion with five speakers presenting their views for about 20 minutes each, and a ton of questions and comments which engaged the panellists and the audience for three hours.

 The debate covered a range of issues, and we were not able to take notes; nor was the discussion recorded.  Justspeak members were present, and have reported their view of the debate.   Justspeak's Charis Dixson later posted an outstanding  blog on the issue, 'Sex Offender Registries: No Safer for Being Scared'.

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  Preparing for the Debate: 

Helping with the Publicity

We both were pleased to have been invited to take part in the debate – and aware that we were guests on their turf.  So it was with trepidation that we raised concern about the SST flyer, which had no information about us.  Sensible Sentencing are strapped for resources, and were unable to change it within the time frame.  They kindly provided us with the opportunity to re-design the flyer, and we sent back the updated version in a couple of hours.  It’s what is known in organisational theory  as  ‘collaborative impact’.

The Minister's View

We both knew that the Minister of Corrections and Police, the Hon Anne Tolley, didn’t support a public sex offender’s register, but were uncertain how she had come to that view.  The Minister’s office provided the following information which clearly sets out her position:

A Public Sex Offender’s Register

"Sexual offending causes significant and long lasting harm to victims, their families and the community. Victims typically experience physical injury and a range of mental illnesses including anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and an increased risk of future victimisation. In 2012/13 the Accident Compensation Corporation  had 779 sensitive claims (for sexual abuse) lodged for children under the age of 16."

"Child abuse is a serious problem in New Zealand. In 2012/13, 505 offenders were convicted of 1819 sex offences against children. A small percentage of people who are convicted of child sex offences continue to present a risk of further sexual offending  for the rest of their lives. Each year around 210 child sex offenders are released back into the community from prison, and another 115 child sex offenders start a community sentence for a child sex offence. The majority of these 325 offenders have no on-going contact with justice sector agencies after their sentence or orders are completed even though they may present a significant risk of future harm."

"Inter-agency information sharing to prevent sexual re-offending has improved in recent years in response to various incidents. However, the lack of a centralised sex-offender register has meant that government agencies cannot reliably identify persons who pose risks of further harm to children or support the effective resolution of offences."

"Offender registers have been implemented in a number of overseas jurisdictions. Their purposes include helping government agencies to identify and manage the risk of sex offending in the community, and providing offenders with incentives and support to maintain a low-risk lifestyle. Sex offender registers are most effective at preventing re-offending when combined with active monitoring of high risk offenders. Child sex offenders would be required to regularly provide a range of personal information to a central register."

"There is little or no evidence to demonstrate that making the Register accessible to the general public improves public safety. Further, the greater the access to the Register, the greater is the risk of privacy breaches and the safety of registered offenders.  Offenders with suppression orders (for the protection of their victims) could not be included on the register, resulting in an incomplete database resulting in agencies missing vital information about potential high-risk offenders. Alternatively offenders could have their suppression orders lifted to be included on the register, but this would impact on the privacy of their innocent victims who have already being traumatised."

"While many jurisdictions do enable  members of the public to access sex offenders registers for the purpose of tracking convicted sex offenders, many members of the public use this information to harass registered offenders. In extreme cases, members of the public have used such information to perform acts of vigilante justice. The stigmatisation can increase the likelihood of re-offending, as offenders can go underground and disappear. In addition, offenders on a public register find it difficult to gain employment or develop positive social connections, and are often forced to socialise with other convicted sex offenders which is much more likely to lead to recidivism. This also has negative impacts on the offenders wider family, such as wives, children and parents."

"Instead of a public register, international experience shows that risk is better reduced when relevant agencies are empowered to information third parties, such as at-risk individuals or groups, and other agencies, that someone is a registered child sex offender. An example may be when they become aware that a registered high-risk child sex offender has entered a relationship with a woman who has children. In this instance, an agency may advise that woman that her partner has a criminal history involving sexual offending against children."

Media Responses

We had a number of pre-debate media opportunities, which we hoped would raise interest in the issue.  New Zealand Herald’s Simon Collins wrote a couple of solid articles, the main article featuring the spotlight speaker Derryn  Hinch, ‘Heavyweight help for  Sex Offender Campaign’  and a shorter piece which reflected our views, ‘Kneejerk Reaction Could Increase Reoffending'. Kim and Garth McVicar discussed the issue on Newstalk ZB’s‘Sunday Café’.  

and Gwenda made a brief appearance on Prime News/Sky TV.
 

Two days before the debate independent Chairperson Stephen Franks took the opportunity to feature a story about debater Derryn  Hinch and Kim in his blog, ‘On Shame Hinch,Korotangi Paki and KimWorkman’; (we were disappointed that he used the original  flyer rather than our updated one).   It was picked up by Cameron Slater’s Whale Oil Hooked who  on the day of the debate, published  a blog ,  ‘Protect the Child and Ignore the Wombles’ congratulating Stephen for giving Kim a ‘right telling off’.   He referred to Kim as a ‘womble’.  Apparently it is British slang for a foolish, clumsy or unfortunate person – oh well, no one said this debate was going to be easy.

FAQ Sheet

Gwenda prepared a FAQ Sheet which was distributed to the audience.  It debunks common myths about sex offenders, and is fully referenced.

The Issue of Name Suppression 

During our preparation for  the debate, it became clear that there was also interest in

discussing the issue of name suppression.  While the two issues are related to the extent of making the identity of a convicted sex offender public, they are very different.  A couple of days after the debate, Kim was invited  to make media comment on a case in which a High Court judge allowed a child-sex offender to keep his name a secret, against the wishes of the solicitor-general and of one of his victims. He was subsequently asked for his opinion by ‘The Panel’s' Jim Mora, who was with panellists Gary McCormack and Tim Watkin.  (at 14 min).

Engaging in the Debate – Who Spoke?

Derryn  Hinch  

There is no doubt that the draw-card  was the first speaker, Kiwi turned Australian broadcaster Derryn  Hinch, who delivered a speech that was up to the standard the public have come to expect.   He followed through with a blog ‘Depressing Suppression’ , which sets out his views and again, demonstrates a level of erudition uncommon in talkback hosts.  It became clear that the SST had a formidable weapon on its side. 

Ian Tyler

In 2006 Ian Tyler, a retired UK detective chief inspector, helped to found the UK’s Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre (CEOP) and the Virtual Global Taskforce.  His view of child offender registers featured in this week’s Listener.  Ian  made it clear that he was opposed to a public register, and worried about its potential to promote vigilantism.  In the article he put it this way:

“An open register, I believe, would lead to mayhem somewhere down the line … I think it would lead to some cases of vigilantism, without a shadow of a doubt.”

Ian spoke about the UK’s “disclosure mechanism"; legislation which  allows anyone with concerns about a person who has access to children to ask police about that person’s background.  We noted that there have been no studies (yet) examining the impact of the limited disclosure scheme on rates of reoffending.

Anne-Marie – Survivor of Sexual Abuse

Anne Marie ‘s description of her history touched all those present – regardless of their position on this issue.  She is determined to speak up and speak out on the issue of child sexual abuse  and did so in a very powerful way.
 

Gwenda Willis 

For those of you unfamiliar with her background, Gwenda  is a Senior Lecturer in Clinical Psychology at the University of Auckland, and specializes in understanding and preventing sexual offending.  In her early days she focused on supporting victims, and from there developed an interest in working with perpetrators.
 

Gwenda’s presentation is summarised below.
 

Why public registers of convicted sex offenders don’t work.

"How do we keep our children safe from sex offenders?  That was a question at the centre of Sunday’s debate organised by the Sensible Sentencing Trust (SST).  SST believes a publically accessible online register of convicted sex offenders is a solution.  Their recently launched website ‘Protect that Child’  states “The public have a right to know who these offenders are to protect themselves and their families from risk.”  However, more than a decade of research into the (in)effectiveness of public registers in the United States demonstrates that a public register will not protect individuals or families.  Worryingly, a public register might compromise community safety. 

A knee jerk reaction: Public registers are a reactive response to inexcusable crimes.  They are too late to protect children and adults who have already been harmed, and they do not prevent future harm.  Numerous studies in the United States have analysed reoffending rates before and after their introduction, and the overwhelming majority of studies find no differences in rates of reoffending.  Moreover, public registers might unintentionally increase the risk of future harm through blocking ex-offenders’ access to stable housing and employment.  Research shows that ex-offenders without somewhere to live, without people to be accountable to, and without employment opportunities are at a heightened risk of reoffending.
 

Despite their ineffectiveness in deterring sexual crimes, research shows that public registers

make us feel safer.  Should feeling safe outweigh actually being safe?  Are our emotions a valid driver for effective policies?  I think not.  Even Patty Wetterling agrees.  Patty Wetterling was instrumental in passing legislation for public registers in the United States following the abduction of her son Jacob.  She now questions sex offender laws, stating "We've been elevating sex offender registration and community notification and punishment for 20-some years, and a wise and prudent thing would be to take a look at what's working. Instead we let our anger drive us.”
 

If we’re serious about keeping our children safe, we need to take a serious look around us.  Children are at a far greater risk of sexual abuse from people they know and trust.  In one large New Zealand study, 85% of sexually abused women were abused by a male family member.  Abusers typically have established relationships with victims, yet registers target the people living amongst us who we don’t know.  In doing so they perpetuate the myth of stranger danger.  Derryn Hinch, a fellow panel member described how he could pull out his smartphone wherever he was in the United States and open an app that would pinpoint the location of registered sex offenders in his area.  He did not explain how he would use that knowledge to keep him or anyone else safe from sexual abuse.
 

Public registers only include convicted sex offenders, yet the majority of sexual offending is unreported.  Moreover, the majority of convicted sex offenders have no previous convictions for sex crimes, so would not have been on a sex offender register when they offended, and most do not go on to reoffend.  It must be acknowledged that there are a minority of convicted sexual offenders who are at a heightened risk of reoffending.  These are the people we hear about in the media; they include the minority of repetitive offenders who target stranger victims.  These are the individuals we have reason to be concerned about, and where carefully orchestrated public notification may be warranted.  A system is already in place in New Zealand to achieve this, whereby the Community Probation Service notifies neighbours when high risk child sex offenders move into nearby houses.
 

Would you have a convicted sex offender babysit children?  
This was a question asked of me multiple times.  I would not knowingly recommend that

someone who has sexually offended against a child babysits or works in a job which would place him or her in close and unsupervised proximity to children.  Similarly I would not suggest to a recovering alcoholic that he/she works in a bar.  My point is that (i) most abuse is perpetrated by someone known to the victim and (ii) most perpetrators are not convicted and would therefore not appear on a public register.  A register would not tell me who might be a risk and therefore would not mitigate risk for abuse.  Mitigating risk for abuse requires systemic and comprehensive strategies targeting children, young people, parents, communities, and our society as a whole.  Here some  suggestions: 

	Individual	Relationship	Community	Societal
Before abuse	Prevention programmes targeted towards potential victims and perpetrators	Promoting healthy, respectful relationships	Policies for youth serving organisations, social norms campaigns, bystander interventions	Dedicated funding for sexual violence prevention
After abuse	Evidence-based treatment programmes for perpetrators	Services for families of victims and perpetrators	Re-entry & reintegration support for ex-prisoners (e.g., Circles of Support and Accountability)	Evidence-based sex offender management policies (e.g., registration with law enforcement)

Common goals

I came to this debate believing that the panellists and audience all shared the same goal of eradicating sexual violence.  When I raised this, Mr Hinch was quick to disagree, repeatedly stating that the community has a “right to know.”  It seems I was mistaken, and that Mr Hinch and his supporters place the public’s “right to know” ahead of the goal of community safety.  For me, preventing sexual abuse is more important than the public’s right to know. 

Several high profile cases of sexual abuse have infiltrated headlines in recent weeks.  People want to know how to keep their children safe.  People want to know how they can be assured someone with a history of sexual offending will never offend again.  I want to know that too, and that is how my initial career as an advocate for survivors evolved into one committed to understanding what motivates sexual offending, and how it can be stopped.
 

I am grateful to the Sensible Sentencing Trust for having me speak at their debate, and for encouraging public dialogue on issues that affect us all.  There is too much at stake to let our emotions instead of research and logic guide our decisions.  Let’s heed knowledge generated from experiments overseas, and channel our energy into informed strategies that will eradicate sexual violence in Aotearoa New Zealand. 

Kim Workman 

Kim decided to take a different approach, and drew on his experience as a former Families Commissioner to compare the government’s approach to reducing family violence with that of reducing child abuse.  Here is a summary of his presentation:
 

“There is little doubt that we have a serious issue with child sexual abuse in New Zealand.  In the 2012/13 year there were 779 sensitive claims for sexual abuse lodged for children under the age of 16 years.  It brought home to me the experience Prison Fellowship had in running the faith based unit at Rimutaka Prison in 2003 .  We had the advantage of a trained counsellor, and before long, prisoners started to reveal a history of sexual abuse –we estimated that about 80% of them had been affected.  It left me reflecting on whether those men would have been in prison, if their early lives had been different.”

“While in the Families Commission I took a close interest in the issue of family violence, and noted there was one thing that both child sex abuse and family violence had in common – that 90% of the offences went unreported.  The government decided to attack the issue around 2006 and to develop strategies which encouraged whānau, families and community to report family violence, or to take steps to encourage the offender to take responsibility for their conduct, and seek help."  

"We knew that if we were successful in achieving that goal, the outcome would be an increase in reported offending, and that is what happened between 2006 and 2009."  

"In 2007 Rethinking Crime and Punishment commented that if the programme was successful that we could expect increases at a reduced level for the next 3 – 4 years followed by a “plateauing out”.  And that is what happened.  In 2008 there was a 28% increase over the previous year, a 13.5% increase in 2009, an 11.8% increase in 22010, and then – hallelujah!  - a 3.1% decrease in 2011.   In an earlier Rethinking blog, ‘The Leading Justice Symposium'  Dr Gloria Laycock, an internationally known criminologist, made the point that: 

“Reductions in family violence and child abuse is not necessarily a good thing, as those crimes are seriously under-reported.  In that situation, an increase in reported offending should be regarded as a positive.”  

How did the government manage to attack this ‘dark figure’ of unreported crime?  The increased reporting occurred on the back of improved police reporting procedures, and the

“It’s Not OK” campaign, arguably the most successful social marketing campaign in New Zealand history.  In a public survey, 98% per cent of Māori, 94% of Pacific peoples and 90% of Pakeha could recall the campaigns advertising and its messages.” In 2009, 35 of the 65 murders were in the area of family violence. The reduction of murders to 46 in 2010, and 34 in 2011, suggests that the campaign may have had some impact. “

There was another leg to the strategy.  Families and whānau were able to get government support if they chose to refer this violence to a service provider, and have them receive support and rehabilitation, without plugging them into the criminal justice system.  Known as ‘non-mandated referrals’ this strategy works well where the family and the offender are committed to reducing violence within the home, but want to avoid the public shaming and penalties attached to a criminal justice intervention. 

Take a look at these graphs.   The first one shows the incidence of reported family violence within the community.  Note that at 2006 reported family violence began to rise significantly.  It coincided with the introduction of police training and policies in 2006-7 which required the Police to report all incidents of family violence, even when there was no physical violence involved. 

The second  graph shows the trends for both non-family violence, and family violence.  It shows clearly that while non family violence decreased, the ‘dark figure’ of unreported family violence was increasing; i.e. the campaign to increase community and family awareness and engagement was successful.

Could this Strategy Work  for Reporting Child Abuse?

A strategy of this kind would do two things.  First, it focuses on the 90% of child sex abusers that go unreported, rather than the 10% of cases who have been caught.  As I said before, this is the one statistic that family violence and child sex abuse share. 

But there the similarity ends; and the differences between the two make a strategy of this kind even more workable  for child sex abuse than the “It’s Not OK “Campaign and its shifts in policing practise did for family violence.   First, almost all persons in prison for serious violence have a history of previous offending, and are known to the Police.  In the case of child sex offenders in prison, about 80% of them have no previous convictions for sex offending, and are there for the first time. 

There is another difference.  Offenders with a history of violent offending are much more likely to reoffend, and re-enter prison a number of times, before they stop offending.  Treatment programmes for violent offenders make very little difference to their behaviour.  So we’re talking about 50 - 60% of them reoffending within two years of release

Sex offenders however, respond positively to treatment.  A recent New Zealand study of 528 sex offenders who had been released for at least two years (and the average time out was 5 1/2 years) showed that 41 offenders (7.8%) who had undergone treatment were convicted of a new offence in that time.

For the above reasons, a public sex offender’s register has almost no value, and  could give the public a false sense of confidence.  First, 90% of sex offenders will not be on the register, because they have not been reported.  Second, about 80% of those on the register will be first offenders, and will not be on the register until they have abused someone.  Of that group, only about 7% of treated offenders are likely to reoffend.  The register has a further disadvantage – families who have a sex offender in their midst, will be even less likely to report them to the Police, for fear of having the offender and the family, being exposed to public shame and ridicule.   

That is not to say that we don’t need a different strategy to deal with the top end sexual predators who will never respond to treatment – I am reliably informed by those dealing with sex offenders in prisons,  that of the 800 or so sexual offenders in prison, about 2%  are high end dangerous predators.  So we’re talking about 16 or so highly dangerous offenders in prison at any one time.  In those cases, there should be public notification.  The best way of doing that is to provide the Parole Board or Court with the legislative authority to make a public media release, and perhaps add their name to a serious offenders database, publicly accessible on the internet. 

If we’re serious about protecting our children, we need to do two things.  First, we need to start a campaign which encourages families and the community to report child sex offending, so that we can increase reporting levels.  That hopefully, will reduce the dark percentage of unreported offending.  Second, we need to have avenues by which families can seek help from those qualified to provide it, without first hving to plug the offender into the criminal justice system. 

This is not an easy thing to do – because, inevitably, you will face political opposition.  Politicians find it difficult to   accept the idea that increased reporting of sex crimes is good news; they want targets that reduce the amount of offending, not increase it.
 

The Problem of Incentivisation

That is what has happened with the reporting of family violence.  When the  Better Public Service Reducing Crime and Reoffending Strategy was introduced in 2011, a goal was set to reduce violent offending by 20%.  The existing strategy which  increased the  reported level of family violence would not assist the Police to reach that goal.  Police policy and practise subsequently changed.  The way in which family violence was recorded in the statistics changed, and it was no longer possible to identify which incidents  were family violence, and which were not.  Organisations like Women’s Refuge and the Salvation Army resorted to using a surrogate measure, by identifying the number  violent incidents which occurred within the home, and regarding them as family violence incidents.
   

By 2012-13 we started to notice a disturbing trend – that while reported violence was trending downwards, the number of women seeking access to refuges throughout the country, was rising.   It seemed clear that the police practice had reverted to an approach which encouraged the non-reporting of family violence – something that was common after World War II and continued into the 1990’s.  The release last week of research by the University of Auckland's FamilyViolence Clearinghouse showed police charges for domestic violence offences dropped by up to 29 per cent from 2009/10 to last year, and the number of offences recorded by police fell by nearly 10,000.  However, investigations into family violence grew from 86,800 in 2010 to 95,100 incidents last year. 

The pressure on government agencies to reach agreed targets is persistent, and it becomes a significant issue, when agencies identify a wrong outcome.  It is a classic case of the “ends justifying the means” i.e. doing something wrong to achieve a positive end and then justifying the wrongdoing by pointing to a good outcome.

Wanted – A New Goal for Government!  

The Goals for the BPS Reducing Crime and Reoffending Strategy are to be reviewed at the need of this year.  We need the incoming government to set different goals which provide an incentive to agencies to address these issues in a different way.  I have two suggestions in the area of child sex abuse: 

1. (1)   Increase by 20%, the number of child sex offenders who are reported as offending for the 1^st time, by 2020.
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3. (2)  Increase by 20% the number of previously unknown sex offenders, who seek funded ‘non-mandated’ support and treatment for their offending, by 2020. 

A government which takes that approach is not only courageous; it’s also ‘Smart on Crime’.