I DO NOT support signing this petition.
There are only a handful of countries that have sex offender registries (SORs), and to my knowledge, only the USA has a system where the names (and other personal information) of convicted sex offenders are publicly available on the Internet. Making their names and general addresses public would only serve to make them more likely to move away and not notify the police, thereby increasing the likelihood of non-compliance. It also increases the likelihood of vigilantism, as we saw with the teen from Cape Breton (Stephen Marshall) who, after looking at the names and addresses of sex offenders listed on Maine's SOR, shot and killed two of them in April, 2006, before eventually shooting himself. We don't need incidents like these in Canada.
There is a misperception that those individuals who get listed on Canada's SOR are all pedophiles. They are not. While some certainly are, one only has to read the Court News in daily newspapers to realize that others are for instances of date-rape, or a spousal sexual assault, etc. Further, statistics show that in the vast majority of cases, most children who are sexually assaulted are victimized by someone within their own family unit, eg. father, brother, uncle, mother's boyfriend....somebody that the victim knows. While there are many well-meaning people out there who take the view that they ought to have the right to know who in their neighborhood is on Canada's SOR, out of fear that that a stranger will assault their child, the reality is that children are more likely to need protection from somebody a LOT closer to home.
I'm glad our system is not like the USA's. Protecting their names and current addresses will make it easier for the police to keep track of them, and ensure better rates of compliance.
only 3% of people convicted of child sex offenses re-offend.
95% of sexual offenses against children are committed by people with no prior child sex convictions.
90% of
I support this petition. It is way past time we stop these people from hurting our children. The rights of these people should be gone the minute they commit the first offense.
I support this petition because I strongly feel that children have every right to the best possible protection from adult predators. Keep up the good work!
I support this petition.they should be banned i have a 13 yr old on here to communicate with her school friends id be devastated if she anything happened to her
