A law due to keep tabs on released sex offenders, set to begin today, has been delayed.

The Criminal Code Amendment Act, passed in June 2000, will allow authorities to notify groups, individuals or the public about the release of sex offenders who are a risk to the public.

Its implementation had been put back while the probation service, prison authorities and judiciary gear up for the change.

Home Affairs Permanent Secretary Robert Horton told The Royal Gazette that Minister Paula Cox was just waiting to hear back from the judiciary before implementing the change which could start next week.

The amendment will allow offenders out early on parole if they have agreed to supervision.

The Act requires offenders to be assessed before sentencing.

If they are deemed likely to re-offend the court must impose a sentence of not less than three years and make an order that the offender must be supervised for up to ten years after their release.

Such offenders must notify the police of their home address within three days of their release and again should their circumstances change.

Failure to comply with the supervision order carries a penalty of ten years.

Mr. Horton said: "Although the amendment was passed more than a year ago the operative date has not yet been announced."

"The judges must be fully apprised of what kind of interventions the support services can offer."

Director of Child and Family services Alfred Maybury said: "We are actually ready.

"People have been sentenced and we have the responsibility to do the supervising."

He said staff were getting training here and overseas in supervising sex offenders and violent offenders and he defended the hiatus.

He said: "If you start haphazard, you finish haphazard, you need things in the correct order."

He said his department had worked to make the changes relevant to local circumstances.

He said Bermuda's tight land space presented problems as released offenders would never be too far from schools.

Mr. Maybury added: "Because we are more confined we have to come up with different solutions."

He said staff would be trained to spot triggers which sets offenders off.

"It won't be just one person doing the supervision - it will be a team approach."

The amendment is similar to the Megan's Law in the US which notifies communities when a convicted sex offender was living among them.

Megan Kanka was murdered in New Jersey by a paroled sex offender in the early 1990s and the law requires all people with sex convictions to report where they are living.