Common sense arrives in Australia

For years, policymakers have been told that putting more information about people on public registries will automatically make communities safer. A recent debate in Australia suggests that some lawmakers over there are not so sure.

Lawmakers there are pushing back against aspects of a proposed law known as Daniel’s Law, which would create a system allowing members of the public to obtain information identifying people on the sex-offender register. The proposal was modeled on public notification systems used in the United States.

Their concerns sound remarkably familiar to anyone who has followed the registry debate in the United States. Critics of the proposal have warned that publicly identifying people on a registry can create a false sense of security, leading parents to believe that if someone’s name isn’t on the list, their children are safe from that person. But a public registry cannot identify the unregistered person who poses a risk. It cannot identify someone who has never been arrested. They also raised concerns about the consequences of public identification, including social isolation, employment and housing difficulties, and the potential for vigilantism. These aren’t theoretical concerns. They are precisely the consequences registry-reform advocates have been documenting for decades. And they also are concerned about another problem – policies that make it harder for people to obtain housing, employment and stable lives can undermine the very factors that help people successfully reintegrate into society and remain offense-free.

In other words, sometimes the policy that looks toughest isn’t necessarily the policy that makes people safest.

Perhaps Australia is beginning to discover what Florida and the rest of the United States should have learned by now. Public safety is not measured by how many people we can put on a website, how many restrictions we can impose, or how harsh a law sounds. It is measured by whether the policy actually reduces harm. It looks like common sense is finally coming to Australia and maybe it’s time for it to make the trip to Florida.

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