Sex offenders and child protecion

Abstract

Sex offenders have always been in our midst and always will be. Yet, it is only in recent times that they have been perceived as an increasing social problem. Paedophiles and offenders against children have in various ways provoked the most concern among politicians and the public since the late 1980s (Sampson, 1994; Parker et al 1996). The most recent manifestation of this is the Sex Offenders Act 1997. The purpose of this paper is to outline the law relating to child sex offenders, and to highlight the problems posed for effective child protection. It will be demonstrated diat of the existing and forthcoming measures for regulating released sex offenders living in the community, none of them by themselves are a panacea. Instead, measures need to be tailored for each individual offender in the context of a multi-disciplinary framework, in order to better protect children.