HC Deb 05 May 2004 vol 420 c1553W
Tim Loughton

To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many people have been(a) added and (b) registered in total on the Sex Offenders Register in each year since its establishment, broken down by gender. [169106]

Paul Goggins

The notification requirements of the Sex Offenders Act 1997 (often known as the sex offenders register) came into force on 1 September 1997. These requirements have been be updated and strengthened through the Sexual Offences Act 2003.

Until 2001, data on the number of sex offenders were collated on a national basis from the police national computer. However, this arrangement was overtaken following the introduction of the Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA) and the requirement on each police and probation area to produce annual reports detailing the work undertaken to safeguard the public and manage dangerous offenders in the community.

The MAPPA reports also include statistics on the number of offenders who are subject to the notification requirements. The 2001–02 reports state that on 31 March 2002 there were 18,513 registered sex offenders living in the community. The 2002–03 reports state that on 31 March 2003 there were 21,413 registered sex offenders living in the community. It is not possible to state the gender breakdown of these statistics.

The Violent and Sex Offenders Register (ViSOR), currently being developed by the Police and Information Technology Organisation, will have greater capacity to store information on sex offenders and provide statistics on the number of convicted sex offenders.

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