¶ … Countries Laws Legislation Governing Sex Offenders Sex Offenders

There was a very restricted definition of sexual damages caused, till the year 1960. Only complete rape and anal sex were considered offensive. This limitation in definition was the only reason that a lot of sufferers were not allowed to register the crime committed and convict the guilty. After 1960 and till present, a lot of changes have been done in the law. At present, sexual misconduct signifies a broader concept and has a wider definition. Furthermore, it essentially means attempt and complete rape and any kind of blameworthy sexual conduct. Moreover, sex offense includes any kind of sexual misconduct committed against a child and an indecent sexual behavior towards a single person, in front of a public (Mackey & Levan, 2013). Any person who is involved in any such crime mentioned above is considered as sex offender. There is an increase in reporting of these crimes over two decades. With a sex offense law passed in the United States in 1994, there were 18 more countries which followed the league. (Global Overview of Sex Offender Registration and Notification Systems, 2014).

Proceedings of sex assault registration in various countries

Australia

There is a central authority which takes care of sexual offense registration in the eight Australian states and territories. This authority operates under the name of Australian National Child Offender System, and is into existence since the year 2004. The present institution in-charge of this leading this registration is CrimTrac. Each of the eight states has a system of maintaining an individual list of sexual offenders. If any state needs to exchange information amongst themselves, then that is provided for in the law. Even the Australian government has full access to all the reports of all eight states and territories. Each and every state, however, follows their individual system of crime registration. A victim is directed to that particular state where her crime can be reported accurately under the rules defined in that particular state/territory. States present in Western Australia have designed a website that takes care of sex offenders (Global Overview of Sex Offender Registration and Notification Systems, 2014). Nevertheless, there are still a few loopholes in the system. For instance, Australia has no national website to track and report such cases and also, the country lacks any kind of national level system through which public could be intimated about such acts (James Vess, et al., 2011).

Canada

The law that was passes in 2014 in U.S. was kind of a benchmark all Canadian states are trying to follow it. They all have their own laws to tackle sex offenders. Ontario is one state that works independently as well as in co-ordination with national law to register sex offenders. It started operating independently in 2001. The range of sex offense registered in Canada is huge and the punishment can be anything from life imprisonment to death penalty. Even if a crime happens on Canadian soil, without the person being a Canadian, the person is supposed to register the crime. However, Canada still lacks on a public registry applicable nationally. Two Canadian states, Alberta and Manitoba have public registry websites, but both websites function at a basic level (Global Overview of Sex Offender Registration and Notification Systems, 2014).

France

There are a few crimes which are worth reporting in France. A few examples are any kind of sexual assault, any kind of corrupt work done by a person below age of 15 and offenses that are grave by the court or prosecutor. The French registration law was passed in the year 2004 and came into actual practice in 2005. There have been however certain rules for registering sexual offences; for instance an offence can be reported till 10 and 20 years depending on the severity of the crime committed. Moreover, a revision every 6 months or 12 months is mandatory and any kind of changes in address has to be informed within 15 days of the change. There are no provisions to let the registration out to public or any kind of website to support the same. If any person living outside France at the time of committing the sexual crime, will need to report it in France, when he returns. A landmark case, which took place in 2009 between Gardel and France, discussed the issue of registration and it was decided that the present law did not infringe the Human Rights values put forward by the European Convention (Global Overview of Sex Offender Registration and Notification Systems, 2014)

UK

UK enacted...

Other countries and states, which follow different set of rules for registration and updation are Scotland, Northern Ireland, England and Wales. Apart from all these laws there are four additional laws, civil orders, which give added protection to the local public. All kinds of sex offenses are punishable in the UK, and the offender can be punished from 2 years in jail to life, depending on the sexual crime committed. In the UK too, there is still no national website for public to see. In case of any change in location or name or any other information, the convicted offender is supposed to submit and update the local police within 3 days of the change (Global Overview of Sex Offender Registration and Notification Systems, 2014).
US

America is the pioneer behind passing the law that takes care of registration of sex offenders. All the states in the U.S. have their registries and also there is a national registry website for common public. Apart from all the states, the rules are also followed in District of Columbia, 4 principled U.S. territories and 70 recognized Indian tribes. If the public needs any kind of information related to law enforcement then they can look at the national website, which has all state records. The punishment duration of a sexual offense can range anything from 15 years to life imprisonment. Apart from that the offender might also be called in for quarterly, semi-annually and yearly checks (Global Overview of Sex Offender Registration and Notification Systems, 2014).

South Korea

South Korea is very active in reporting sex offenses and has a proper public registry system in place to register and notify any kind of crime. All convicted criminals are required to be registered in this website. Anyone can avail the information on any sexual offender from this website, till that offender is in prison for that particular crime. There is a notification system for public where there is database present for all criminals for about 5 to 10 years, depending upon the crime committed. Sex offence also includes any kind of harassment done on a child. Duration and frequency of punishment includes from 3 years to life. Lastly, it is mandatory that the offender is registered for up to 20 years for the crime committed and should notify any kind of changes within 30 days (By Global Overview of Sex Offender Registration and Notification Systems, 2014).

Legislation History

United Kingdom was the first one to start the sex offender law, in the year 1997. This act was known as Sex Offender Act of 1997. The offenders, according to this law, were supposed to get all their details registered with police. The time for this registration was needed, depended upon the length for which the offender served the jail. The notification was issued to public only if law would agree to it otherwise it was limited to schools. Even Canada followed the league when it created sex offender registry, after U.S. And UK. This was mainly in concern with crimes against children. As The Sex Offender Information Registration Act (SOIRA) was formed only after an eleven-year-old child named Christopher Stephenson was murdered in year 2004. According to a law passed under this act, all the convicts of sex offenses were supposed to report to police once in every year. Australia came up with Australian National Child Offender Register (ANCOR) in 2004 that took care of registering of child sex offenders. This served as a case-management database for the police. The law required all victims to report any kind of crime related to sexual offense, or a serious offense against a child immediately to the local police. The offenders were asked to submit their local address, car registration number and frequent places they visit (Newburn, 2010). In 2010, South Korea took serious actions and put forward sexual offense acts in five areas of legislation. To further stricken the rules, the country added three more laws and rectified two laws. This was also done to suit the needs of present times where incidents of sexual offenses had increased dramatically and many rape incidents had been reported. Few cases involve pre-teens being victims, who were later on killed. Statistically, there was an increase of 46% in rape cases in 2008 as compared to 2004. Furthermore, there was an increase of 81% in child sexual offenses who were under…