Will the public sex offenders registry actually help?

In a few day’s time, we’ll know who the 32 501 registered sex offenders in South Africa are. Other than making for some really awkward school and family reunions over the next few months, is it really going to be of any benefit?

If the core reasons are preventing femicide and protecting children, the public shaming should be a deterrent. You’d think that some sort of moral compulsion should be enough of a deterrent but looking at the latest crime stats, apparently not. Sure, reported cases are marginally down but when they’re still of the highest in the world, little dents are hardly praiseworthy.

Why did we have a sex offenders register if it wasn’t public? Certain people could apply to check if particular people were on the register but the 150 bucks and six-week wait is pretty off-putting. Imagine needing a teacher desperately, having the candidate and then having to wait to confirm their documented sexual proclivities.

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That’s the one problem. The other is that it requires that somebody gets sexually violated before putting in the protective measure of placing them on the list. But it’s not as easy as that. One has to be found guilty and then go through another case to get an order to be placed on the list. There are some 10 000 people in that process. Let’s call them limbo cases.

Limbo cases aside, opening up the register so that concerned parents, teachers who aren’t on appointment committees, or prospective romantic partners can check up on a person sounds like a good idea.

The arguments about privacy are unfounded. I don’t think any privacy law was ever enacted with the hope of protecting somebody’s history of convicted sexual offence. Court cases are public for a reason and the list makes its aims easier to achieve. Otherwise, why have a list at all if it’s only accessible to a chosen few under difficult conditions?

It’s a move in the right direction but will it stop femicide? Will it stop child abuse? Time will tell but we have to admit certain philosophical issues with the idea.

Is the existence of the list an admission that there’s no rehabilitation for sexual offenders? We release murderers back into the world. Why do we assume that a sex offender must be labelled for life?

While labelling sex offenders publicly will be a step in protecting schools and people who care to check the list, if they are as vile as we determine them to be, how much protection is a list, really?

Most importantly, how much of this puts the burden of our protection on ourselves? It’s certainly a wonderful tool to have but imagine the police sergeant’s response when you tell him that your partner, who was on the sex offenders register, assaulted you.

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It’s also uncertain how the sex offenders register looks. Will it specify the crimes? Will it give ID numbers to distinguish between people with the same names?

Then there’s the question about the manner of release. There was talk about a staged release prioritising schools but if that’s the case, then why? It will be curious to see how this manifests or whether it goes the way of a budget speech and gets kicked down.

There’s no two ways about it. The list should be public. It’s the international standard, supports the aims of having the list and is certainly not a significant hit at privacy. What we do with the list when it’s out is on us.

Naturally there will be a bit of checking on acquaintances but when that’s over, two things need to happen; we need to continue pushing to prevent sexual crimes and we need to be honest with ourselves that just because we have access to the list, those crimes will continue to happen until more is done.

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