Why name and shame sex offenders

So given that we see no need to keep this type of offender on an online name and shame register, why is it necessary to have one for sex offenders? Especially given how hard it is for them to get out of prison at all in the first place, compared with, say, murderers. [...]

But in the wrong hands this sort of information has the potential to be extremely dangerous. The potential for vigilantism is obvious, as is the potential for mistaken identity. The experience with these registers in the US has included deaths and gratuitous violence, as well as payback measures such as graffiti and molotov cocktail bombings. There is no reason to think it won't happen here. Given the downside of this sort of exercise in naming and shaming, and the comparatively limited benefits of it if any you have to think of it as just another cynical exercise in political opportunism by the government a gratuitous attack on those marginalised groups in the community who are universally abhorred.

source: Article 'Why name and shame sex offenders' by Tom Percy; www.perthnow.com.au/opinion/why-name-and-shame-sex-offenders-asks-tom-percy/story-e6frg423-1226505303972; Perth Now; 29 October 2012