Meeting of the Parliament 03 December 2015
Thank you, Presiding Officer.
I am grateful for the cabinet secretary’s response. I have visited the monitoring centre and was advised that people there are very confident about the ability of the GPS system to monitor dangerous offenders, whether sex offenders or others, more effectively than what we have now does. I ask the cabinet secretary to challenge those who are advising him about the challenges. Let us get to the right answer in that regard.
I have a couple of bullet points that I want to mention in my remaining time. First, offender management should begin before release, in prison; more attention needs to be paid to dealing with offending there. We need to initiate courses that can better redirect offenders to a more useful lifestyle in future to deal with reoffending rates.
Secondly, it is important that housing associations know the background of sex offenders who apply for tenancies. Difficulties arise when there is public knowledge of offenders in communities. I know that Paul Martin is aware of the challenges that lie behind that, which include the threat of vigilante action, offenders going underground and offenders being encouraged to create their own networks. Housing associations should be aware of their responsibilities in managing applications and they cannot accept those responsibilities unless they know the nature of the people to whom they offer houses.
White Flowers Alba provided a briefing for the debate and it fully supports Paul Martin’s motion. It makes the point that if the public inquiry that is going on had a broad remit, it might help us to learn more lessons about how to respond to sex offenders and manage the risk. I hope that the Government will listen to what White Flowers Alba is saying and will encourage the best use of that public inquiry.
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