The PC Party’s idea of a website of registered sex offenders makes no sense as a public safety proposal. I can understand the concept behind a registration for sex offenders and I can certainly understand restrictions on where someone convicted of specific sex crimes can live, but I don’t understand how a website would do anything for “a law-abiding family’s right to safety.”
No other policy would be as certain to turn a complying registered sex offender into a noncompliant convict running from the law. A sex offender that is known by his/her neighbours is certain to be driven out wherever she/he goes. Eventually any individual is bound to start ignoring the rules and refusing to cooperate with authorities.
Since there are 14,000 registered sex offenders in Ontario, it would be an impossible task to hunt them all down if they all or most decide to become noncompliant. So then you won’t know if your neighbour is a convicted sex offender and neither would the police.
Furthermore vigilantes are not uncommon where this policy has been introduced in the States. I can definitely understand the desire to beat your neighbour to a pulp if you discovered that your neighbour had once sexually assaulted a child (I actually got a little angry just typing the words “sexually assaulted a child). But that natural human emotion is not conducive to public safety and it does great injustice to sex offenders who were convicted of more minor crimes.
If anything it is likely that publishing the names of sex offenders would be bad for public safety.