Govt moves to change sex offender laws

The Queensland Government will change its sex offender laws so more dangerous prisoners might be kept in jail indefinitely.

The Government commissioned a review of the Dangerous Prisoners' Act after community concern about the release of serial offender Robert John Fardon.

Police Minister Judy Spence says Cabinet has endorsed all 22 recommendations.

At the moment, violent offenders are only considered for indefinite sentences if the maximum penalty for their crime is life.

But the Government will take laws to Parliament later this year lowering that threshold to crimes that attract a 10-year sentence.

Ms Spence says it is just one change that has arisen from the review of the Dangerous Prisoners Act.

"As well the report recommends that in future Corrective Service officers will determine where sex offenders who are released from prison on supervision orders will live," she said.

"We will also allow Corrective Service offices to allow whether these people indulge in alcohol."

The Government also wants voluntary chemical castration to be offered more frequently.

"In some cases chemical castration can help offenders who have high levels of sexually deviant arousal or high levels of libido," Ms Spence said.

"But it can only work if the offender wants to participate in this program and the offender is willing to go along with psychiatric treatment at the same time."

Under the changes, prisoners who have been indefinitely detained will have their cases reviewed every two years instead of annually.

Quote: These draconian laws have nothing to do with the rehabilitation of sex-offenders nor do they account for what rehabilitation sex offenders get or have received in custody to date. On the contrary these draconian laws allow for the blatant disregard of prisoners’ rehabilitation whilst in custody and rely merely on warehousing such prisoners indefinitely because of the lack of programs in the prison system. What the community should be asking for is the alleged Corrective Services to show the community exactly what programs prisoners’ have received in custody to date, the reason for the failure to rehabilitate them in the first place, whilst they are in custody, before drafting draconian laws? Draconian laws mean that the government’s department of alleged Corrections has failed one of its mandates and instead of providing programs now expect taxpayers to foot the bill for their failure once again.

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