Although more than ten per cent of offenders each year re-offend – eight of 56 per year, on average – this represented ‘very low re-offending annually – almost exclusively for lower-level unrelated offending, the response said.
The petition launched by paedophile hunter Cheyenne O’Connor last month calls for minimum three-year prison terms to be imposed and for paedophiles to be placed on the Sex Offenders Register for life.
Issuing an official response on Friday, ministers said that setting minimum prison terms was not ‘common practice’ in the Island.
‘It should be made absolutely and abundantly clear that all ministers completely deplore the actions of paedophiles and the consequential harm that is caused by them to our children,’ the official response said.
It was issued 26 days after the petition gathered the 1,000 signatures required to trigger a ministerial response.
As of Friday, more than 2,350 people had signed Miss O’Connor’s petition, the third most supported since the e-petitions were launched by the States last year.
The official response said the new Sexual Offences Law which came into effect in November ‘was prepared in order to meet the needs and expectations of the police, prosecutors, modern Jersey society and international standards’.
The new law covers offences by adults against children of different age ranges up to 16 and maintains the offences in relation to abuse of trust where an adult engages in sexual conduct with a person aged 16 or 17. Positions of trust covered now include people involved in coaching children in sports or other activities.
A new offence was created in relation to sexual grooming which ‘applies where an adult intentionally communicates (by any means, including online) with a child who is 15 or younger and the communication is sexual or intended to encourage a sexual communication in response’.
‘This offence provides more comprehensive protection to children as it is now not necessary for the adult to have travelled to meet the child for the offence to be committed,’ ministers said, adding that Jersey’s laws set out maximum sentences for offences rather than imposing minimums.
‘The maximum prison sentences have been set having regard to the nature of the behaviour giving rise to the offence and the penalties and range from liability to imprisonment for life to imprisonment for five years,’ the official response said.
‘With these maximum sentences set, it is for the courts, having considered a case and the associated evidence in full, to then make a decision as to the appropriate sentence to be applied.’
The response added that once offenders were on the register, the relevant authorities had greater powers to enter and search their homes in order to monitor their activities and, in contrast to England and Wales, offenders must apply to be removed from the register, rather than being automatically removed at the end of their the court-order period. A partnership of agencies have worked together since 2011, it continued, resulting in ‘very low re-offending annually – almost exclusively for lower-level unrelated offending’.
There are currently 140 registered sex offenders in Jersey.
‘In terms of the benefits of lifelong registration, further research would be needed to establish if resources should be diverted to monitoring offenders for their whole life, keeping in mind that there will likely be circumstances where an individual has not re-offended in decades and may no longer pose a threat to the public,’ the response said.
Having read the response, Miss O’Connor said she was not satisfied that authorities were taking her concerns seriously.
‘The whole “if an offender hasn’t committed a crime in decades” is ridiculous,’ she said. ‘They are not monitored properly as it is, so how could they possibly say no crime has been committed, so they are no longer a threat?’
