Public Knowledge

Over the weekend, the news has had a couple of stories about whether the UK government is thinking of doing a version of “Megan’s Law” from the US. Basically, this would mean that it became public knowledge about any convicted paedophiles and/or sex offenders who lived in the area.

Some people might be surprised to know that I’m actually quite against this kind of thing, and I have a couple of reasons for being so.

First of all, I don’t actually believe it does anyone any good. The “Stranger Danger” campaign, another instance of “protection” was grossly misguided, because while yes, some child abuse is committed by people unknown to the victim, or family of the victim, a huge proportion isn’t. “Stranger Danger” is great for trying to stop child abductions, kidnappings, poisonings etc., but for stopping child abuse it’s bollocks. Now, I don’t claim to know the exact figures, but it’s well known that child abuse happens primarily within a family, and the abuser is normally known to either the victim, or the victim’s family. I vaguely recall that the figure is somewhere in the 75-80% range.

Secondly, I’m cynical about the reactions it would have from the general populace. I suspect that the general response would be along the lines of “Well, we don’t want them in our area. Let’s get rid of them.”, which would then lead to the types of civil disturbance, vigilantism and ignorance that was so famed in places like Portsmouth in 2000 when a local paper “named and shamed” local paedophiles – and got the wrong names/addresses.

I can all too easily see people deciding that every sex offender is a paedophile, and thus when anything happens in the area, they would become the targets for vilification, abuse, and violence, even if the occurrence had been nothing to do with their own particular offence. And it doesn’t take much to imagine the results if a child were abducted in that area – again, vigilantism and violence.

Personally, I despise paedophiles, and child abusers. But I don’t think that allowing either the government, local councils, or the media to disclose their whereabouts is a productive way to handle these things. Life sentences that actually mean something, yes. Sex Offenders Register, where those who have committed a similar offence previously are top of the list to be questioned should something similar happen, yes, most definitely.

But letting the public decide? No, absolutely not.