Police across Canada are welcoming the federal government’s proposed sweeping revisions to the National Sex Offender Registry. One key change, as the Globe and Mail reported, would allow police to use it pro-actively to prevent crime.
As the law now stands, police cannot consult the registry, which lists the names and tracks the whereabouts of people convicted of committing a sexual offence, until after a sex crime has been committed.
But if Bill C-34 passes, police investigating, for example, someone suspected of acting suspiciously near a school would be able to check whether that person’s name is in the registry’s database.
“Allowing police to use the registry proactively will open the lines of communications with other officers both within our own agency and elsewhere,” Halifax Regional Police Chief Frank Beazley told the Halifax Chronicle Herald. “This provides more eyes on the streets to help ensure individuals convicted of sexual offences are complying with their conditions and prevent additional sexual offences from occurring.”
“We know these are sex crimes waiting to happen, but because the offences in these cases are break-and-enter or criminal harassment, we can’t use the existing legislation and registry to help us with these cases,” Vancouver Police Chief Constable Jim Chu told the Globe and Mail.
Other changes contained in C-34, introduced in Parliament by Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan on June 1, include making it mandatory for every convicted sex offender to be listed in the registry, as is currently the case only in Ontario. No longer would it be up to a judge to decide whether or not particular individuals warrant being included in the register.
According to Van Loan, only 42 per cent of all sex offenders are currently registered.
The bill also proposes that all convicted sex offenders be required to submit a DNA sample to the national DNA databank and that Canadians convicted of a sex crime in another country be included in the registry.
These amendments would apply only to those convicted once C-34 becomes law. But once people are listed in the registry, the only way their names could be expunged would be if they can prove in court that they were wrongly convicted.
Critics object that these new provisions would leave no discretion to the courts to differentiate between someone’s one-time inappropriate behaviour and the horrific and violent crimes of pedophiles and rapists. “Believe it or not, some people do rehabilitate,” attorney Alain Hepner told the Calgary Herald.
In an editorial, the Globe and Mail likewise questioned this one-size-fits-all approach: “About 25,000 sexual assaults are reported to the police each year; the vast majority are at the least severe end of the spectrum. Making all those convicted of sex offences report their movements to the police would tie up the police and impinge on civil liberties for little or no effect on crime investigations.”
The National Post, in contrast, argued in an editorial that the government should go even further and “make the registry searchable by anyone, anytime, as most U.S. states do.” |
