A problem with no clear solution is playing out in Sydney. A notorious Paedophile has served his sentence, been released - and is now the subject of a community guerrilla campaign to remove him from the suburb where he is living.
Dennis Ferguson was sentenced to fourteen years gaol in 1988 for kidnapping three children and sexually molesting them in a motel. Upon release he faced community action that hounded him out of several towns in Queensland, and now he has been granted a lease in a Department of Housing unit block in Sydney.
Two factors collide violently in this confrontation. A convicted person is entitled to return to society once the sentence imposed by a court has been served - and families are entitled to protect their children from a known predator living in their midst.
The Housing Commission says it has no legal right to ask this man to move on. He has a legal lease for his unit - and if he did move it would simply restart the whole process of rejection as has happened at his previous addresses.
There are cases on record where released paedophiles have reformed and caused no further problems, and there are cases where the urge to molest children has been too strong and this has led to tragedy.
It comes down to who has the greater right ? The released prisoner to rejoin society at a place of his or her choosing - or the right of parent's to not live with a source of danger to their children openly living nearby.
The ideal solution would be to house released paedophiles in a place where there there were no children, but such places simply do not exist.
Perhaps we need a law change to make integration part of the sentencing option. It might be necessary to create a small cluster of housing in an industrial suburb with no general housing, and make living there for a set period on release a condition of sentence.
At least this would serve the purpose of separating offenders and children, and during that period there would be a chance to keep the subject under observation and detect any wayward behaviour.
There is no perfect answer to the problem, but some solution must be found otherwise this situation could descend into open suburban warfare !
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