Minister of Justice Tseng Yung-fu (曾勇夫) yesterday pledged to increase the screening of parole applications by sex offenders after his ministry was held accountable for releasing a serial sex offender.
Tseng said the Ministry of Justice will carefully assess parole applicants’ risk of recidivism before making a decision on whether to approve their applications.
Individuals re-imprisoned for committing the same type of crime after being released on parole will not be granted parole again, he said.
He said the ministry is also prepared to require that sex offenders be subject to electronic monitoring around the clock, instead of only at night as is the case at present.
The Ministry of Justice, Taipei Prison and the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office were censured a day earlier by the Control Yuan, the country’s top government watchdog, over the release of Ting Ta-lun (丁大倫) on Aug. 21 last year.
The Control Yuan discovered that the ministry did not assess Ting’s risk of recidivism before granting him parole, while Taipei Prison only determined after his release that he was “at higher-medium risk” of repeat offending. The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office, meanwhile, did not issue an order for his electronic monitoring until November last year.
Ting committed a rape in 1995 when he was 17 and was sentenced to five years in jail. He was released on parole in 2000, but was jailed again in 2002 after being convicted of another rape and sentenced to 10 years behind bars.
He sexually assaulted a woman on Sept. 7 last year, just 17 days after his second release, and committed another sex offense in November of that year. Although he was wearing a night-time electronic tag at the time of the second offense, it took place during the day, when he was not being monitored.
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