An offenders registry? National security does not need this sort of help

National security took care of herself for many decades in Hong Kong. Now it appears the poor lady is in constant peril. Or so you might think from the number of white knights galloping to her rescue.

The latest is Mr Grenville Cross, who amused readers of the China Daily with an opinion piece entitled, “Keeping tabs on released offenders lessens risks.”

His concern arose after four of the famous 45 primary-election offenders recently emerged from prison. Four more have been released since, and several more will soon follow.

Mr Cross, former director of public prosecutions, believes that prison is supposed to have a salutary effect on inmates. However, he worries that “if … individuals have committed crimes against society that are politically motivated, they may also be resistant to reform.”

This apparently was “partially addressed” by the provision in the homegrown Safeguarding National Security Ordinance, the latest legislative masterpiece on this topic. Commonly known as Article 23, it states that national security offenders are not eligible for the usual early release schemes unless the commissioner for correctional services thinks they will not be a threat.

New to me was the additional snippet that the commissioner is “advised” in this matter by the Committee for Safeguarding National Security, a high-level group of law and order officials who will not, perhaps, be inhibited in their deliberations by thoughts of rehabilitation or reform.

But what to do when the offender comes to the end of his or her sentence? Mr Cross goes on to note that Singapore has solved this problem with legislation empowering the home affairs minister to keep people in jail indefinitely if they are “a threat to the public.”

Oddly, we are not told, although it appears relevant, that our motherland has also solved this problem. People deemed “a threat to the public” disappear into the detention system for years, sometimes forever.

However, the UK and Hong Kong have (unlike Singapore) signed up for the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights, so something like this is “unlikely.”

Thus, at the moment, there is no arrangement for monitoring national security offenders post-release. However, the UK has “shown a possible way forward”. And where is this seductive highway to security? The Sex Offenders Register.

Under this, convicted sex offenders are required to register with the police, provide addresses and other information, admit inspecting police to their homes at any time, and so on. The register can be consulted by potential employers.

We could have “a National Security Offenders Register,” Mr Cross suggests, which “would go a long way toward neutralising any continuing threats to national security posed by offenders who have completed their sentences. It would enable the police to keep tabs on them, and the individuals concerned would know they needed to be careful.”

Wow! Lots of places have registration schemes of one kind or another for sex offenders, They are particularly popular in the US. A variety of bells and whistles are commonly added to the basic requirement of an occasional visit to a police station.

Actually, they are not particularly effective. Repeat offending among sexual offenders is rather rarer than for more conventional criminals. Victims of such repeat offences generally knew their partner (the vast majority of sexual offences are committed in the home) was on the register.

Some critics have dismissed registers and the associated restrictions as having very little effect beyond depriving the released offender of two keys to a successful return to society: somewhere to live and a chance of employment.

The whole idea is based on the questionable notion that crime can be prevented by identifying potential offenders and looking ostentatiously over their shoulders. So far as it inconveniences the released offender, it also violates the basic principle that people should be punished for what they have done, not for what they might do in future.

Of course, how this will work in Hong Kong depends a lot on the details. Will the released offender be required to wear an ankle tracker, report regularly to a probation officer, and undergo weekly drug tests? Will he be forbidden to go – or live – within 1,000 yards of any police station, government office or other national security establishment?

Will the offender have to register email addresses, WhatsApp numbers, any name used on the internet, their car registration, and their Octopus number? Will the register be public? Indeed, will the police, as they are in some American jurisdictions, be expected to notify the neighbours if a released offender moves in nearby?

Somewhere at the bottom of this slippery slope, we may be heading for a national security equivalent of the Sexually Violent Predator Order, under which the offender who has served his sentence is shunted into a “hospital” in which treatment is a choice but leaving is not.

Anyway, this is a really bad idea. It will generate international criticism; most common law countries will take the view that a sex offender’s registry is one thing and a political offender’s registry is another. Domestically, Mr Cross notes that some 20 per cent of prisoners reoffend within two years of discharge. But that means 80 per cent do not. They are entitled to their freedom.

And it is not as if, without some formal scheme, released national security offenders are going to disappear from view completely. Presumably, those four hotels full of national security specialists, not to mention our friendly local police force and patriotic nosy neighbours, will be looking out for signs of sin.