DNA Edit: Sex offenders, beware – A registry is an effective weapon

While crime against women has shot up, the rate of conviction has gone down, giving rise to the apprehension that stricter provisions in the law have failed to make a difference. Call it faulty investigations or the failure of the criminal justice delivery system, the National Crime Records Bureau’s figures for 2016 show a remarkable jump in rate of crime against women – crimes per 1,00,000 female population – with 55.2 in 2016, up from 41.7 in 2012. Against this backdrop, the National Registry of Sexual Offenders, which features the names, photographs, residential address, fingerprints, DNA samples, and PAN and Aadhaar numbers, of convicted sexual offenders, will make the job of the police and other investigating agencies a lot easier. 

Since the details of the entries in such a registry will be made available only to law enforcement agencies, it should be incumbent upon them to update the list. A database of this sort will be particularly helpful in cases of repeat offenders though the names of first-time offenders too will be included. In the UK, such a list had failed to become effective because of the government’s failure to convince the Supreme Court about the importance of maintaining the registry. In 2012, the SC had declared that, “with no right of review, requiring sex offenders to register their address with police and inform them of travel plans was disproportionate and incompatible with the right to privacy”. Since then the UK police had to let go of hundreds of convicted sex offenders, despite much hue and cry. In India, where public safety is often accorded little priority, such a registry is vital in fighting gender crime and crimes against children.