Residents of a Christchurch suburb are wondering why another child sex offender has been allowed to move into an area that has many kindergartens and schools.
Education providers in Woolston and Linwood have received notice that a person new to their community has a conviction.
However, the Department of Corrections says it is a carefully considered and closely managed situation.
Canterbury District Manager Toni Stewart told Tova O'Brien there are four sex offenders living in that part of Christchurch, but the decision to house them in this specific location is not one they take lightly.
"The decisions around deeming an address suitable for someone who has offended in this way are taken very carefully," Stewart said.
"We want to reassure people we've got really thorough and robust assessment processes that consider a whole raft of factors before we redeem an address suitable for someone who has offended in this way."
While she couldn't tell O'Brien whether four was a large number of sex offenders to be in a community the size of Woolston and Linwood, Stewart explained there are a number of factors that decide where people who offend in this way are housed.
"Where the residence is placed on a property, the visibility the address might have to the foot traffic out front, proximity to bus stops and all those sorts of things.
"It's quite a complex and complicated and robust assessment process.
"I want to reassure people that if an address wasn't deemed suitable and we didn't think we could safely manage someone there, it simply wouldn't be approved."
Stewart noted that people who have offended in this way are often subject to a whole range of "quite restrictive" conditions.
"Such as electronic monitoring, restrictions around where they can go, where they can enter, the sorts of people they can associate with and/or have contact with.
"We are monitoring those conditions really closely."
Listen to the full interview between Canterbury District Manager Toni Stewart and Tova above.
You can also download the full interview on the Tova podcast, and listen on the go.
