There is a limit to how far the state could or should reach into the private lives of its adult citizens.
Nevertheless, in the words of the charity Rape Crisis Scotland, the case of 31-year old John McDougall beggars belief. This man, jailed in 2000 for raping a 19-year-old girl at knifepoint while he was full of cheap booze, managed to contact 55 women on Facebook, using a false name, while behind bars and arranged to meet one of them after his release.
The Sheriff who returned him to custody to serve a further 34 months for breaching the terms of the Sex Offenders Register also expressed incredulity that a prisoner could set up a profile on a social networking site and use it to contact women. Inmates nearing the end of their incarceration need to be rehabilitated and cannot be expected to remain cut off from life outside but public safety must be paramount.
Social media sites claim to have attempted to safeguard users from sexual predators but filtering software used to identify and bar those on the Sex Offenders Register is useless when they can hide behind an alias, as McDougall did. He and others may take the view that they have done their time and are entitled to live a normal life but the prison service has a moral obligation to society and especially to survivors of sexual crimes to ensure that such offenders are closely monitored, so that they cannot put women at risk.
Since 2010 prisoners caught in possession of a mobile phone can have up to two years added to their sentence. It was recently reported that there have been 63 convictions for this offence since the law was introduced, suggesting that the rule is widely flouted.
A recent investigation found that some of Scotland's most dangerous criminals, including murderers, were using social networking sites to boast of their antics in jail and even post photographs. Clearly it is relatively easy to smuggle mobile phones and sim cards into prisons. If the management in Scotland's jails is not as rigorous in this activity as it should be for fear of a breakdown in law and order by cracking down on smartphones, that should be addressed. Have budget cuts limited the scope and number of searches?
Meanwhile, a generation happy to trust Facebook introductions should be on its guard. The internet is full of wolves in sheep's clothing.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article