Russian senator Anton Belyakov has penned a draft bill that would see convicted pedophiles tagged with electronic tracking bracelets and tracked by satellite in a bid to stop them relapsing upon their release from prison.
"Statistics show that in 97 percent of cases, an offender convicted of raping a minor and who is suffering from such a sexual disorder will commit a repeat assault on a child within the first year of release," Federation Council senator Belyakov told the Izvestia daily on Monday.
To reduce recidivism rates, Belyakov proposed equipping convicted pedophiles with permanent electronic bracelets upon their release to allow law enforcement agencies to track their every move using satellite navigation systems, the report said.
The monitoring system would allow police to inform residents if a convicted child sex offender moved into their neighborhood, according to the draft proposal.
The A Just Russia lawmaker said the system had proved to be particularly successful in South Korea, where only one of 219 convicted child rapists went on to reoffend while wearing a tagging bracelet.
The U.S., Britain, France and Estonia also have systems in place for the electronic tagging of convicted pedophiles, the Izvestia report said.
Children's rights ombudsman Pavel Astakhov previously blamed a supposed pro-pedophilia lobby in the State Duma for deliberately blocking proposals to toughen punishment for pedophiles and causing delays in the legislation being passed.
"Could there be a pedophile lobby that simply finances [opposition to the bills] and opposes their passage? I think it's not far from the truth," Astakhov told the Interfax news agency in 2010.
