Sex Offender Management

Managing sex offenders through lifetime management: the role of effective IT in improving public safety.

The release of convicted sex offenders back into the community creates great anxiety for the public and poses many challenges to a number of separate authorities as they strive to ensure offenders are properly managed and appropriately monitored. At the same time the authorities have to maintain confidence amongst the general public about the safety of the area in which the offenders may live. This requirement, coupled with the need for multiple organisations including housing and social work departments involved in the lifetime management of sex offenders to work together with the police and others, can often lead to bureaucratic delays in the sharing of vital information and subsequently an increased risk of re-offending.

In fact, the latest inspection report on managing sex offender risk, published in June by the Social Work Inspection Agency, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary for Scotland and HM Inspectorate of Prisons, rightly identified that much more needs to be done to improve information-sharing practices between agencies to better protect the public. In England and Wales the lack of a national integrated IT system for sharing information between forces, creates further issues in the monitoring and management of sex offenders within the police service itself. Although there is some progress in England and Wales on the issue of a national intelligence system there is still a way to go before it becomes a reality and there remains therefore ongoing concerns.