Justice Minister Tseng Yung-fu pledged Thursday to tighten the screening of parole applications by sex offenders after his ministry was held accountable for a serial sex offender who was caught repeating the same offense shortly after his second release. Tseng said the Ministry of Justice (MOJ) will carefully assess parole applicants' risk of recidivism before making a decision on whether to approve their applications. In addition, those who are put back in jail for committing the same type of crime after being released on parole will not be granted parole again, Tseng said. He said the MOJ is also prepared to require that sex offenders be subject to electronic monitoring around the clock, instead of during night time only as is the case at present. The Ministry of Justice, the Taipei Prison, and the Taipei District Prosecutors Office were censured a day earlier by the Control Yuan, the country's top government watchdog, over the latest release of Ting Ta-lun Aug. 21, 2009. The Control Yuan discovered that the MOJ did not assess Ting's risk of recidivism before granting him parole, while the Taipei Prison only determined after Ting's release that the man was 'at higher-medium risk' of repeat offenses. The Taipei District Prosecutors Office, meanwhile, did not issue an order to put him under electronic monitoring until November 2009. Ting, 32, first committed rape in 1995 when he was 17 and was sentenced to five years in jail. He was released on parole in 2000. He was jailed again in 2002 after being convicted of another rape and sentenced to 10 years behind bars. He sexually assaulted a woman Sept. 7, 2009, just 17 days after his second release, and committed another sex offense in November of that year. Although he was wearing a night-time electronic tag at the time of the second offense, the offense took place during the day, when he was not being monitored. Ting was sentenced to nine years by the Taipei District Court in July 2010 for his two latest offenses, reduced to seven years Thursday upon appeal. 