Sex offenders would have their name, suburb, and photographs made public if the Coalition wins the November 2018 state elections in Victoria. Interested parties would be able to check the register for names of those who are close to their children, or anyone in their neighbourhood.

The sex offenders register in Victoria would be a database whereby an individual must prove need to be able to access the information stored in it. This means a record would be kept of all inquiring parties. Information supplied is proposed to be a description of the registered sex offender, a photograph, and their suburb. The register would only be used for those convicted of serious sex offences.

A dedicated commissioner would be overseeing the database, with the whole setup to cost about three million for the first four years of operation. Vigilante justice was to be avoided, the Coalition says, by not allowing the addresses of offenders to be given out, however in reality this is not a very solid protective measure in the technological age. It’s not too hard to find people.

The reasons given for advocating for the register were to protect the community and give people in neighbourhoods information on who was in their area.

But, sex offender registers make offenders more likely to offend, says Professor James Ogloff of Swinburne University, speaking to ABC Radio Melbourne. Such schemes, he said, do not make the public safer. Family and local institutional (church) factors with sexual offences are typically much more likely to be at play than strangers, which the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse has uncovered. This means we may be looking for protection in the wrong place.

In 2017, the Victorian Government introduced new legislation to permit police to collect DNA and fingerprint all registered sex offenders without a warrant.