According to its sponsors, the bill "is an answer to the necessity existing in Poland for developing new elements of the system for preventing and fighting sex crime, especially offenses committed on children and the youth."

The bill proposes, among other things, to create a registry of sex crime offenders that would contain two separate databases: one with limited access and one public.

The first one would be accessible, according to legislative powers, for state and local bodies as well as educational care centers and organizers of leisure activities for children and youth.

The other registry would be public. It would contain records of those offenders who were sentenced for violent rape of children younger than 15 years old and repeat criminals.

'Not effective'

The Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights claims that "a public registry is not an effective instrument against the risk of sex crimes." The HFHR is not against introducing into Polish law a mechanism that would register sex offenders.

"We believe that access to such database should be limited to a narrow group of users," says the HFHR’s secretary of the board Piotr Kładoczny.

In the foundation’s opinion, the idea of a public registry of sex offenders should be abandoned.

"A publicly accessible registry is not an effective measure for reducing risk of sex crime and its introduction would cause unnecessary social concern as well as lead to a number of negative consequences for the families of sex offenders," says Kładoczny.

Reduces therapy chances

Another institution, the Polish Sexology Association (PTS), also expressed its protest against the public registry of sex offenders.

In its statement, PTS emphasized that, among other issues, the existence of such a registry would reduce opportunities for conducting therapy for sex offenders as it makes it impossible for them to return to society.