overseas regimes

This page considers offender registration regimes in New Zealand, the UK, US and other jurisdictions.

It covers -

• the US
• Canada
• Britain
• New Zealand

     US

As the preceding page noted, US practice in offender registration has served as a model (or something to be avoided) for many jurisdictions considering community notification and non-public schemes.

There is considerable variation in the registers operated by most US states, reflecting state politics, resourcing and the shape of offences.

Typically a state offender registry features

• the offender's name
• residential address
• employment address
• law enforcement identification number
• fingerprint
• photograph (some 39 states require provision of a photo in registration at each/every police station; others link to arrest databases)
• conviction details.

Some states collect information such as residence history, vehicle registration numbers and blood samples for DNA analysis. Information may be forwarded or provided directly to other government agencies: some states for example obligate reporting to driver licencing bodies, with the licence indicating that an individual is a registered sex offender. Registration is also sometimes tied to other requirements, with Contra Costa County (California) for example seeking to prohibit "convicted felons from owning any dog that is aggressive or weighs more than 20 pounds".

All states require sex offenders to register for at least ten years: 40 require lifetime registration for some sex offenders, with other states registering all sex offenders for life.

Updating address and other data for the registry is typically the responsibility of the offender; most states mandate change of address notification within 10 days. The federal Wetterling Act obligates states to periodically verify a registered offender's address (annually for an offender convicted of an offence against a child or a sexually violent offense; every 90 days for a sexually violent predator). In practice checking by parole, police or other agency staff appears to be poor. Around a third of registrations in Boston, for example, appear to be at incorrect addresses.

A more detailed description of the US legislation features here.

Private not-for-profit and commercial community registers (drawing on court records or otherwise) have attracted considerable attention in the US. They often feature or are allied with 'notification' services, eg receive an email if an offender moves into your neighbourhood or an offender's family moves into your neighbourhood.

In December 2007 Congress agreed to establish a national registry regarding arsonists. Legislation would require convicted arsonists to report to authorities where they live or attend school, with a national database (to developed by the attorney general) to "track arsonists and make information available to local law enforcement officials'.

Registration may be tied to other restrictions.

In 2007 for example New Jersey extended its Megan's Law regime by prohibiting convicted sex offenders from using the net other than in job seeking. The offenders will have to let the State Parole Board know about their access to computers, install software on personal computer to allow monitoring and submit to periodic unannounced examinations of the devices. The board had earlier banned offenders from using social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

     Canada

Canada's federal structure, as in Australia, has resulted in a mix of feral/provincial legislation and registers

The provinces have largely emulated Ontario's sex offender registration law introduced in 2001, although non-public registers in some provinces date from the early 1990s.

At the federal level a non-public national sex offender registry is maintained by federal officials, primarily through provision of information from provincial counterparts. The federal government operates the CPIC (Canadian Police & Information Centre) registry, which features names, addresses, fingerprints and other data regarding all criminals convicted in Canada. Information from that database disseminated on a selective basis.

Community notification has been introduced by some provinces, with six provinces adopting 'limited disclosure' by 2001.

     Britain

In the UK the salient legislation is the Sex Offenders Act 1997 (SOA), which introduced registration of range of sex offenders in the United Kingdom, and the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

There is is no formal public right of access to the national register, although there is selective disclosure of information - in what has been characterised as "a controlled fashion" to a range of officials (eg housing and social services agencies), professionals (eg doctors and teachers) and members of the public. That is consistent with case law supporting 'controlled disclosure' of police information to immediate neighbours, direct victims or the cohabitee of an offender where a specific risk exists.

Under the legislation an offender must within 14 days notify details to the police if they have been convicted of a sexual offence identified by the Act, were cautioned or were found not guilty by reason of insanity/disability. Offences are wide ranging, including rape, incest, indecent assault of an adult, indecent conduct towards a young child and possession of indecent photographs of children.

The compliance period ranges through five years, seven years (sentences of six months or less), ten years (sentences of under 30 months) to 'indefinite' (sentences of 30 months or more).

An offender is required to supply name, date of birth and residential address (with notification of any change of name, residential address or temporary use of any other premises), with failure incurring a sentence of imprisonment for a maximum of 6 months and/or a fined.

The UK Sex Offenders (Notice Requirement) (Foreign Travel) Regulations 2001 obligate offenders to notify the police at least 24 hours before leaving Britain if they are going to travel overseas for eight or more days. That notification includes nation or nations to be visited, accommodation arrangements for the first night outside the UK and the intended date of return. Information may be provided to officials outside the UK.

The Violent & Sex Offenders Register (Visor) holds information on 47,000 people (including 25,000 sex offenders) as of August 2005, with an expectation that it will eventually cover around 200,000 people. Visor controversially includes details of people who have not been convicted but are considered a public danger. Reportedly 626 convicted offenders are regarded as 'high risk', with a further 547 requiring close supervision in the community.

Offender registration is independent of the AntiSocial Behavior Order (ASBO) notification regime discussed in the following page of this note.

The Offenders Register (maintained by the police) is independent of List 99, an education department blacklist of people banned from working with children.

     New Zealand

A 2003 Sex Offenders Registry Bill in New Zealand sought to establish a non-public registry of persons who have been convicted of 'serious sexual offences' and assist the police in their investigation of sex offences, reduce sexual offending, and thereby contribute to public safety.

The proposed Registry would cover offenders convicted under sections 128 to 144C of the Crimes Act 1961. It would contain the offender's name/s, address, date of birth, offences (or alleged offences), reference to identifying information held on the offender. The registry would be accessible to police personnel or agents. The Minister would have discretion to authorise access by other persons. As of 2005 the proposal was under consideration by the NZ Parliament's Justice & Electoral Select Committee, with an information-sharing pilot having been conducted in Dunedin.

The legislation followed proposals for community notification schemes, for example by New Zealand Paedophile & Sex Offender Index publisher Deborah Coddington (whose site both warns against "orwellian legislation" and flags her campaign to "protect children from criminals, against welfare explosions, the slow death of the academic curriculum, the NCEA, the dissolution of the family").

In 2006 Barry Grant Brown, with a 19 year history of sex crimes against children (including sentence of five years' jail in 1998 for kidnapping and indecently assaulting a 5 year old boy), was awarded $21,900 for invasion of privacy after police warned neighbours that he was out of jail and had moved into their neighbourhood.

The Wellington District Court judge ruled that police had been "somewhat self-righteous" when they breached Brown's right to privacy in 2001 through a leaflet drop bearing his photograph, criminal record and the street in which he lived. A NZ Police representative justified the breach on the basis that Brown had broken parole conditions and moved into an apartment near schools and playgrounds.

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