justice

This page considers the scope and scale of Australian offences and security registers.

It covers -

• introduction -
• convictions registration
• sex offender registers
• fingerprint databases
• DNA databases
• 'child worker' identification schemes
• security vetting

     introduction

[under development]

• criminal convictions
• fingerprints and other biometrics
• 'child workers'

    convictions

The federal and state/territory spent conviction regimes are broadly similar, providing for expungement of many juvenile convictions and offences punished with under six months prison sentences (subject to a crime-free period).

There is no specific spent convictions legislation in Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia. In New South Wales, Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia legislation provides that most offenders do not need to disclose the conviction - and the public records are sealed - after a specific period of time. Some discrimination is also prohibited.

More detailed information about the different 'spent convictions' regimes is featured elsewhere on this site.

    sex offenders

Exclusions to the spent convictions regimes reflect major crimes, notably those involving children, with law reform bodies grappling with concerns regarding employment of sex offenders (evident in suggestions for strengthening of the NSW Child Protection (Prohibited Employment) Act 1998 and proposals in Victoria for photo ID and registration under that state's Working With Children law).

Australian regimes for the registration of sex offenders have developed from state/territory criminal conviction recording arrangements. There is considerable variation across the jurisdictions and, as of 2005, no 'community notification' schemes. The Federal government CrimTrac agency operates a National Child Sex Offender System, including notification of overseas peers when convicted paedophiles report an intention to leave Australia, but it does not monitor movement of individual offenders within a state/territory as that is the responsibility of the respective Government. A non-public register of child sex offenders was for example established in New South Wales in 2001 under the Child Protection (Offenders Registration) Act 2000 and in Queensland in 1989 under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1945. Australian and overseas police and community notification schemes are explored in more detail elsewhere on this site.

    fingerprints

Law enforcement agencies have moved towards sharing of biometric databases that encompass information from people who have been arrested and those who have merely undergone probity checks for particular positions. The Australian AFIS database contains around 2.6 million fingerprint records from individual State and Territory Police Agencies, including what are claimed to be records from all people arrested since 1941 and records from a range of official probity checks (eg police applicants for appointment as a police officer).

    security vetting

Security vetting by/for government agencies is discussed in more detail here.

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