Ministry reacts to sex offenses

Minister of the Interior Yu Cheng-hsien (余政憲) yesterday announced that the ministry is studying the possibility of notifying communities to which sex offenders move after their release from prison as part of a planned monitoring system.

The announcement came in the wake of three highly publicized arrests of sex offenders on suspicion of offenses committed shortly after their release from prison.

"Sex offenders should be monitored more closely after they return to society. The Ministry of the Interior is studying the possibility of establishing a community security system and might release information on sex offenders to the communities in which they stay," Yu said in a speech at the Pingtung County police station.

Calls for the government to establish the community security system were raised again after Taipei County police arrested two sex offenders this week for allegedly reoffending.

Repeat offender

Taipei County police arrested Liu Kun-shih (劉坤時), who has a record of nine sexual offenses and was released in June, for suspected offenses toward two children in a park on Monday.

One day after the arrest, police arrested Chen Chin-ming (陳勤明), who is suspected of committing 15 sex offenses after he was released upon passing a psychological examination in April. In one of the cases, an elementary school girl's finger was cut off because she fought back.

The Sexual Assault Prevention Council under the Ministry of the Interior is drafting a proposal to establish a community security system, while the authorities are now on the way to completing a database on sex offenders as part of the 1997 Anti-Sexual Harassment Law.

The new system will trace former sex offenders and notify the communities in which they live, according to Lin Tzu-ling (林慈玲), secretary-general of the council.

Lin, however, added that the council and the Ministry of Justice are solving technical problems with the system's operation, which include finding out how to notify the communities and what kind of sex offenders should be traced by the system.

"We don't think that all of the sex offenders need to be traced, but how to define the difference is an issue for us," Lin said.

According to statistics from the National Police Administration, more than 50 percent of sex offenses are committed by friends, classmates or neighbors of the victims, while a high percentage of cases occur in residential areas.

Women's rights groups, quoting medical research that shows sex offenders frequently commit crimes after their release from prison, have been promoting a system to notify communities where released sex offenders live.

Human-rights groups, however, have opposed the idea, saying that doing so would make these offenders' return to society impossible.

Second punishment

"Those sex offenders had been punished by the imprisonment. The notifying system would just be their second punishment," said Hsueh Chin-feng (薛欽峰), a lawyer and member of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights (台灣人權促進會).

The idea is a copy of the US "Megan's Law," named after a 7-year-old New Jersey girl who was raped and murdered in 1994 by a paroled sex offender who had moved into her neighborhood. The legislation provides for public notification of the identities and whereabouts of convicted sex offenders after their release from prison.