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| | Thursday, 13 December, 2001, 15:01 GMT Do we need a 'Sarah's Law'? Portsmouth residents protest over paedophiles The conviction of Roy Whiting for the murder of Sarah Payne has raised the issue of whether the UK needs a "Sarah's Law," where parents would be told if a convicted paedophile was living in their area. Click on the names to find out what those for and against the law think. Michelle Elliott is director of the charity Kidscape which is committed to keeping children safe from harm or abuse. She believes a Sarah's Law would work for the most dangerous paedophiles. "I think for predatory serial paedophiles it's vital that the community knows where they are.
"I think it is impractical and probably impossible with 110,000 convicted child sex offenders to monitor them all. "But I think if handled properly it can be done. She said the US equivalent of Sarah's Law, Megan's Law, had been shown to work. "I don't think any serial dangerous paedophile should ever be allowed to live in a community with children."
"And it raised the temperature and led to violence." "We are talking about a very small number of very devious and very determined people. "They are most likely to run away if they are publicly named." He said the key was not to drive them away. "The way forward is to impose an adequate form of control on their behaviour but the government has got to resource it properly.
"We have researched this very extensively," he said. "It is a myth that seems to linger in the air. "These people are already underground." "Sarah's Law calls for the right of all parents who would wish to know if living close by was a Roy Whiting and that information should be made available." Richard Garside is a spokesman for Nacro, the crime reduction charity. He believes it is understandable that parents want to know if a paedophile is living in their area. "But no-one has put together a creditable argument that if Sarah's Law had been in place, Roy Whiting wouldn't have abducted Sarah. "But there is some evidence that if there had been a law, he wouldn't have been at his present address and the police wouldn't have known where to get him. 'Not serious proposal' Mr Garside said Sarah's law would put unfair demands on parents. "How would you ask parents to make a distinction between the really quite dangerous one and people who don't really pose a risk to their children." "It places a responsibility on parents without giving them any power to do anything."
Mr Garside said that although Megan's Law had been in existence for a number of years in the US, there had been very few valuations of its effect. "It has been very costly for police to manage the system. "And in California since the introduction of Megan's Law, paedophile offences have risen not fallen." Nacro has been calling for the introduction of reviewable sentences where offenders would be detained until it was felt they were safe to be released. "The most important thing is that dangerous people shouldn't be able to offend again. | |
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