The alleged rape of a 10-year-old boy raises a lot of questions about how the nation handles sexual offenders — especially those who target children.
The issue of how to handle sex offenders has been brought up many times, but as these offenses continue it is obvious that what the government is doing is still insufficient.
The suspect, surnamed Chen, has a long history of similar offenses, and despite mandatory therapy sessions during and after his time in jail when he admitted that he cannot control himself when he sees children, he was still allowed to roam free.
Taipei Prison responded by saying that since Chen had served his jail sentence and was not on parole, they had no means of monitoring him once he left the prison grounds.
He was released on July 31, but was involved in a burglary case just three days later. That should have been a red flag.
On Saturday he attended a therapy session at the Yilan County Department of Health, which reportedly regarded him as “doing very well and very cooperative, with no signs of anything unusual.”
The next day, he allegedly committed the crime.
What went wrong? How do we prevent these types of cases from happening?
While there is no surefire way to stop pedophiles from committing crimes short of executing them, there is one thing that is clearly missing from the criminal justice system — a public register of sex offenders.
In the US, anyone can go on the Internet and look at which sex offenders live near you. In Taiwan, only certain industries are allowed to request access to this register for employment purposes.
Chen was staying with his family in Yilan when he allegedly committed the crime. According to his neighbors, he had already exhibited suspicious behavior such as staring at children playing and even using binoculars to look at them.
The victim’s mother said that her son told her Chen would hug him when he saw him.
They knew he had a criminal history, but there was no way to find out the magnitude of what he had done without a publicly accessible register. A simple online search would have exposed him as a repeatedly convicted pedophile and the crime could have been prevented.
According to a Brookings Institution report, Taiwan’s register of sex offenders was not made public because of “fierce opposition from human rights groups.”
Yes, there are repentant criminals who want to live normal lives after they are released from jail, but when it comes down to whether to protect potential victims or former criminals, the choice is pretty clear. Plus, it is not a lifetime register. Offenders are removed from the list after five or seven years, depending on the situation.
The prison system and health departments should be more stringent when dealing with these types of repeat offenders. This is someone who has a long history of child molestation, was in jail for raping a boy, during which time he also raped his cellmate. Yet, he was released a month early for “good behavior.”
Most people, no matter their inclination, can exhibit good behavior for a short period of time. Do these institutions just look at his performance at the time without considering his history or his possible behavior outside of therapy?
Chen’s “good behavior” could have been debunked if there was a public register of sexual offenders. Once informed, members of the public could have cooperated with the authorities and the health department, and they would have been more alert rather than praising his behavior.
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