What does the public think about sex offender registers? Findings from a national Australian study

Lorana Bartels; Karen Gelb; Caroline Spiranovic; Kate Warner; Lynne Roberts; Julia Davis

doi:10.1080/13218719.2020.1805813

What does the public think about sex offender registers? Findings from a national Australian study

Psychiatr Psychol Law. 2020 Sep 11;28(4):560-575. doi: 10.1080/13218719.2020.1805813. eCollection 2021.

Authors

Lorana Bartels^{1

2

3}, Karen Gelb⁴, Caroline Spiranovic³, Kate Warner³, Lynne Roberts⁵, Julia Davis⁶

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Social Research Methods, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
² Canberra Law School, University of Canberra, Canberra, ACT, Australia.
³ Faculty of Law, University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia.
⁴ Department of Criminology, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
⁵ School of Psychology, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia.
⁶ School of Law, University of South Australia, Adelaide, SA, Australia.

Abstract

This article presents data from questions about sex offender registration orders in a large national survey on Australian public opinion about adult sex offenders. It outlines the legislative frameworks that govern these registers in Australia and discusses the use of public registers, the research on the effectiveness of sex offender registers, and Australian attitudes to such registers. Our surveys of three cohorts of members of the Australian public reveal strong public support for sex offender registers, especially for cases involving child victims. However, there was also support for judicial discretion in the imposition of orders and reduced support for automatic registration where a non-custodial sentence is imposed. The Australian Government has recently announced the establishment of a national public sex offender register, but our findings show limited support for this approach. The implications for policy and practice are considered.

Keywords: Australia; jurors; public opinion; sentencing; sex offender registers.

Grants and funding

The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: The project was funded by an Australian Research Council Linkage Grant, Project ID: LP 130100083 with the following partners: Department of Justice, Tasmania; VSAC; Australasian Institute of Judicial Administration; and the and the ACT Victims of Crime Commissioner. Funding was also received from the Australian National University and University of South Australia to support this research.