Number of registered sex offenders in Victoria triples in 10 years

The number of registered sex offenders in Victoria has tripled in the past decade, with the group responsible for hundreds of crimes in the past year.

The number of registered sex offenders in Victoria has eclipsed 10,000 – more than triple the number of a decade ago.

Alarmingly, the group of mostly men were responsible for hundreds of crimes in the past year, including loitering near schools.

The revelation comes as a large group of registered sex offenders have been deemed potentially eligible for removal from the police radar.

This means police would no longer track their movements for the purpose of public safety.

The group of sex offenders were responsible for hundreds of crimes in the past year.

Registered sex offenders were charged more than 900 times with failing to comply with their reporting obligations in the year to September 2023, Crime Statistics Agency figures show.

Police also laid 13 charges against sex offenders caught loitering at or near schools and recorded 73 prohibition order contraventions.

Some 10,160 individuals are listed on Victoria’s sex offenders register, which enables police to track where they live, work and travel, and their contact with children.

Ninety-eight per cent of them are men.

The figure includes 533 offenders added in the past year.

It includes offenders who have died as an aid to investigating historical sex offences.

A decade ago the state tracked just 3206 sex offenders.

More than 4600 registered sex offenders living in Victoria are subject to reporting obligations, and 902 are in custody.

The explosion of online child exploitation has significantly contributed to the growth of the sex offenders register.

A Victorian father sentenced without conviction in 2007 on three counts of sexually penetrating a teenage girl had his reporting obligations wiped for life last year.

His case was the first of its kind in Victoria.

The man was aged 20 at the time and his victim was his 15-year-old girlfriend, who did not make a statement to police.

During his Supreme Court hearing, a lawyer for Chief Commissioner Shane Patton said there were “potentially 140-plus eligible registered offenders” who could mount the same challenge, with three cases already before the court.

Bill Doogue, director of Doogue + George defence lawyers, which represented the man, previously advocated for “flexibility and judicial discretion” for registered sex offenders, saying the system destroyed the lives of thousands of offenders who posed little risk to the community.

The state government is now considering the Victorian Law Reform Commission’s report on Improving the Justice System Response to Sexual Offences. It recommended judges be given discretion to keep ­offenders off the register.

However, a government spokesman said it had “no plans to change sex offender register laws”.

A Victoria Police spokesman said the register aimed to ­protect the community by ­reducing the “likelihood of ­reoffending, facilitating the ­investigation of sex offences and prosecution of recidivist offenders, and to prevent registrable sex offenders from working in child-related ­employment”.