The Victims Register was created in 2004 in Victoria whose function is to notify registered victims when their offender is due for parole or placed on a supervision order.
Over 50,000 offences, such as murder, sexual or physical assault, aggravated burglary, stalking, kidnapping and culpable driving occur in Victoria each year with victims of these crimes eligible to register but only just over 1% actually do register with many victims being unaware that such a service exists.
Registered victims are also allowed to ask the Adult Parole Board for certain conditions in respect to protection such as banning the parolee from contacting them.
Registration is currently voluntary but some victims are calling for all victims to be automatically notified when an offender is released with one victim stating that “the system seems to do everything it can to support the criminals, and we as victims are left feeling like the guilty ones.”
The Victims Register is managed by the Victims Support Agency.
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