Prosecutors question whether offender photos will better protect children

Estonia’s Prosecutor’s Office supports plans to strengthen background checks on people working with children but doubts that adding sexual offenders’ identification photos to criminal-record checks would improve children’s safety, ERR reports. It says treatment and therapy could help prevent repeat offences, but options in Estonia are limited.

The Ministry of Justice has sent draft amendments to the Child Protection Act and the Criminal Records Act for consultation. The proposals would let employers check staff backgrounds automatically every month, instead of making a manual check at least once a year, as required under current law. If a check shows that an employee is barred from working with children, the Social Insurance Board would also be notified.

The ministry also wants criminal-record responses to include an identification photo of anyone barred from working with children because of a contact sexual offence against a minor.

The Prosecutor’s Office questions how much the photos would help. The ministry’s explanatory note says they could help address cases in which an applicant gives an employer a false personal identification code and the employer does not check their identity document. Prosecutors consider such cases unlikely. They also note that the explanatory note says public sex offender registers do not have a positive effect on reducing repeat offending, and argue that it does not sufficiently explain how adding photos would significantly improve child protection.

While supporting the draft’s overall aim, prosecutors say more resources should go to mental health services, counselling, treatment and specialist training. They say therapy and treatment for offenders can help reduce repeat sexual offences, but suitable treatment and social programmes are scarce in Estonia for both prisoners and people serving sentences in the community.

The Prosecutor’s Office says the proposed changes would not make the current situation worse, but questions how much they would improve children’s safety.