India recently launched a National Database on Sexual Offenders (NDSO), the ninth country to do so.
About:
The Criminal Law Act, 2018, provides for a national registry of sexual offenders.
It is a central database of “sexual offenders” in the country which will assist in effectively tracking and investigating cases of sexual offences.
It will be maintained by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and is accessible only to the law enforcement agencies (like state police) for investigation and monitoring purpose.
The database will include offenders convicted under charges of rape, gang rape, POCSO and eve teasing. At present the database contains 4.4 lakh entries.
The database includes name, address, photograph and fingerprint details for each entry without compromising any individual’s privacy.
The data will be stored for (a) 15 years for those posing low danger, (b) 25 years for those posing moderate danger and (c) lifetime for habitual offenders involved in violent crimes like gang-rapes.
S., U.K., Canada, Australia, South Africa and Trinidad &Tobago are some of the other countries having similar databases.
Criticism:
In some western countries, there have been demands for a review of the decision to maintain a registry amid a view that it does not serve as a deterrent or help people who have survived sexual violence.
In India, critics have pointed out most sex crimes are committed by a person known to the victim. So once such a registry comes into being, it might lead to people not reporting rapes or sexual offences, because most of them are by people known to the victims.
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