UK: Online naming and shaming ‘threatening offender rehabilitation’
According to Detective Superintendent Stewart Gull, the recent spate of ‘naming and shaming’ local offenders online after their sentences have been carried out is posing serious problems for their ability to reintegrate into the community.
He told Express he is aware of more than 10 individuals – and, in some cases, their families – who have been adversely impacted by the tactic, whether emotionally or in terms of affecting their employment and housing prospects.
According to Mr Gull, however, such posts have led “distraught family members” and third parties to contact him about the adverse impact the posts have had, “often after a significant period (years) of rehabilitation”.
“We work very hard in supporting and working with offenders’ rehabilitation, most crucially employment, accommodation and family support,” he added. “Those are stabilising factors. If you remove those, you increase the risk of reoffending, which leads to enhanced supervision by the Police and the Probation Service.”
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ahem…..except for sex offenders….ahem, of course.
Part of what makes registry reform difficult in the US is that voters here simply have a different mindset about crime. Making sure the criminal is punished, is far, far more important than making sure they’re rehabilitated. We simply don’t care as much about the latter as some other countries do.