Irish Times Misinformation

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   theirishobserver.posted 14 years ago

   Irish Times Sex Offenders Misinformation
   
   The Irish Times, the paper that has failed to report the fact that one of its members of staff Tom Humphries is being investigated for the Rape of at least one female child tells us today that, FEWER THAN 15 per cent of the 1,100 convicted sex offenders on the sex offenders register are receiving treatment or supervision while living in the community. This is a comprehensive scare-mongering lie, every person on the sex offenders register is supervised by an assigned Garda Officer in the area where he/she lives. Furthermore, less than 4% of sex offenders are ever convicted in a court of law and therefore over 96% of all sex offenders live in the community without any interference or supervision from the State.
   Rape Crisis Network Ireland said the risk of sex offenders reoffending was being underestimated and that the State was neglecting to protect society from that risk. According to the Irish Times Last year 158 convicted sex offenders were supervised by the Probation and Welfare Service. However, this type of supervision is determined by the Court in relation to the ‘risk’ posed by the said offender, less than 10% of convicted sex offenders go on to reoffend and with rehabilitative care in prison this can be reduced to 3%. In most other categories of crime the rate of reoffending is up to 90%.
   According to the Irish Times, Garda sources say the number of offenders on the register has been hovering at about 1,100. The total rises or falls slightly as more offenders are added and the terms of those on the register expire. It means about 940 offenders living in the community who are on the register are not required to engage with the probation service and are not being monitored by it. Again the Probation Service is appointed by the Courts and the supervision aspect of the Sex Offenders Register is in the hands of locally appointed Gardai.
   The Irish Times states that The Probation and Welfare Service directed queries about sex offender supervision to the Department of Justice, which has yet to reply to queries from the Irish Times.
   Rape Crisis Network, an information and resource centre on rape and sexual violence, expressed its concern at the low levels of supervision. The Rape Crisis Network that has been funded to the tune of tens of millions of Euros of tax payers money is never afraid to spoil a good story with facts. The fact is that 96% of sex offenders are never brought before the courts, there are 23,000 confirmed female sex offender files on the shelves of the Health Boards and none of these file shave even been passed to the Gardai.
   International expertise also informs us that the Sex Offenders Register in those countries where it exists has had absolutely no impact on sexual crime in those countries, in Ireland since the Sex Offenders Register was introduced, sex related offences have reached epidemic proportions compared to the ten years previously.

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