A small number of Queensland police are battling to keep an eye on the state's rising number of registered sex offenders.
A Crime and Corruption Commission review found 79 officers were monitoring 3163 sex offenders on the Child Protection Register who wrere out in the community, a situation that poses a challenge for police.
The number has risen by at least 100 a year, with one officer telling the commission it could take years to get around to checking in on low to medium risk offenders and others, saying many offenders should not be on the register at all.
The report on the effectiveness of the Child Protection Act also found the increase in offenders' reporting periods hampers police efforts, and ultimately a lack of data meant the CCC could not determine how effective the act was in protecting children.
"While some police officers described managing their reportable offender workload comfortably, most interviewees described challenges in conducting proactive checks on their reportable offenders," the report says.
One said: “We spend so much time reacting to taskings, we can’t do the proactive visits. The proactive is where the value is.”
Another suggested some reportable offenders "probably haven’t been checked at all".
However, the report released this week says Queensland is not alone, with police in NSW and Victoria also concerned about their monitoring workloads.
Police told the review many of the offenders should not be on the Child Protection Register, with one officer putting the number at 60 per cent.
Lack of knowledge among police and prosecutors about Offender Reporting Orders and the increase in the length of reporting periods following changes to the act in 2017 also risk "further diluting police efforts", the report says.
Seventeen of the 79 Child Protection Offender Registry members agreed to be interviewed for the review.
It makes 23 recommendations, including more judicial discretion about whether a person should be added to the register, more education for police and prosecutors, and a review of reporting periods.
Police Minister Mark Ryan said the government would consider the recommendations but made no apology for cracking down on sex offenders.
"The government will always be on the side of children," he said in a statement.
"This is exactly why we doubled reporting periods for child sex offenders from five to 10 years for the first reportable offence and from 10 to 20 years for a second reportable offence."
Mr Ryan said police resources were a matter for the police commissioner but said the number of Child Protection Offender Registry co-ordinators had doubled in recent years and more personnel would be allocated in future.
Opposition Leader David Crisafulli said the report made damning reading and revealed "an abject failure to keep Queensland kids safe".
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