https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-64701020This article confirms something that has been talked about for a while. It will only apply to those with sentences of over 12 months but that will still be a lot of people. The interesting thing is that they appear to have been put on the register immediately, before the law has been changed.
"While the process to change the law takes place, such offenders will be recorded on the Violent and Sex Offender Register so they "don't fall through the cracks", the government said."
I'm not sure how this is possible, without legislation. On gov.uk, it says this:
"While we are pursuing this legislation, police and the probation service will start work immediately to ensure that from now offenders sentenced to a year or more for controlling and coercive behaviour are recorded on the violent and sex offender register, so that they don’t fall through the cracks."
It suggests that there is going to be a record created on the Visor computer system for them, but not that they will receive regular visits from police, like SO do, because that would require changing the 2003 act. There is also mention of introducing civil orders, which would force them to declare a change in name or address. That is different from SO, who are required to notify police under the law, not because of their SHPO.
The other thing is that when the law is changed, they will be automatically be monitored under MAPPA. At the moment this only happens if the police want to use MAPPA. In future, they won't have a choice. When this occurs, that is presumably when the home visits will begin. The numbers currently on MAPPA are about 80k, with about 70k of those being SO.
With around 2.4 million domestic abuse cases each year, we should see the MAPPA numbers double quite quickly, putting enormous strain on police resources and perhaps leading to less frequent visits for low risk SO.