Bill introduced to establish sex offender register

September

2015

A Bill to enable the establishment of a child sex offender register was introduced to Parliament by Social Development Minister Anne Tolley on 13 August 2015.

The Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill "aims to reduce sexual reoffending against child victims, and the risk posed by serious child sex offenders by providing government agencies with the information needed to monitor child sex offenders in the community and providing up-to-date information that assists the Police to more rapidly resolve cases of child sex offending."

The Bill allows Police and Corrections to establish a register for convicted child sex offenders aged 18 or over at the time of the offence and who have been:

Convicted of a qualifying offence and has been sentenced to prison, or
Sentenced to a non-custodial sentence and directed to be registered by the sentencing judge, or
Convicted of an equivalent offence and sentenced overseas, or have been on an overseas register with the intention of residing in New Zealand.

The Bill will require registered offenders to:

Report to the Police within 72 hours of prison release or after receiving a non-custodial sentence and being directed to register by a Judge
Provide a range of information such as fingerprints, photographs, aliases, address, workplace and employer, car registration, computer IP address and passport details
Notify Police within 72 hours of changes to any information
Report annually to Police to confirm information is correct, be fingerprinted and photographed.

Offenders would stay on the register for a life term, 15 years or eight years, dependent on the scale of the offending.

A dedicated Police and Corrections unit will manage the register information and identify and manage the risk posed by offenders who have come to the end of their sentence, or are serving non-custodial sentences. Relevant information will be able to be shared with authorised staff from agencies such as the Ministry of Social Development or Housing New Zealand. The register will not be open to the public, but in cases of significant threat to the safety of children, information may be released to a third party such as a parent or teacher responsible for a child.

The Regulatory Impact Statement prepared by New Zealand Police and the Department of Corrections states that the 10 year cost of the register is $146 million. This includes the capital and operating costs of setting up and running the Register and the operating costs associated with managing the people on the Register. $85 million will come out of existing baselines. $61 million of new funding will be required.

The Statement says "Over ten years, it is estimated that 4 to 34 child sex offence convictions may be prevented, as well as the prevention of many undisclosed, or unreported child sex offences."

Kim Workman from Rethinking Crime and Punishment said:

"If I was going to spend a million bucks, I wouldn't be spending it on a register but sex offender treatment and rehabilitation."

Otago University Dean of Law Mark Henaghan said a register doesn't actually help discourage repeat offending:

"$35 million is a major spend on putting something on a registrar ... all it really tells you is where people live and that and it does infringe their rights, we'd be better invested putting that money into treatment programmes."

Sensible Sentencing Trust founder Garth McVicar wants a register to be open to the public.

Minister Tolley said:

"By gathering information authorities will be able to keep track of these offenders, while also being alert to any changes in their circumstances. Agencies will gather continually updated personal information, which can then be assessed and analysed to determine if reoffending is more likely to take place, so that necessary action can be taken."

The register is scheduled to be in place by July 2016. The first hearing of the Bill is yet to be held.

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2015 Update:

‍The Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill passed the first reading in Parliament on 15 September 2015.

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Further resources:

Research on the effectiveness of sex offender registers is below.

The United States Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking (SMART) has published a series of Research Briefs which aim to provide policymakers and practitioners with trustworthy, up-to-date information to identify what works to combat sexual offending and prevent sexual victimisation.