Trinidad launches online sex offenders registry

This in­for­ma­tion will be for the pub­lic to be aware and bet­ter pro­tect them­selves. The new law al­so al­lows vic­tims of sex­u­al crimes to seek com­pen­sa­tion from their at­tack­ers.

The Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs in a state­ment is­sued Monday said the much-de­bat­ed law took ef­fect at the end of last month and marks the first time in his­to­ry such an ap­proach to deal­ing with sex­u­al of­fences has been used in fight­ing the crime.

Ac­cord­ing to the min­istry, “per­pe­tra­tors of sex­u­al crimes will face the full brunt of nov­el laws aimed at de­ter­ring, pun­ish­ing and sham­ing rapists, pae­dophiles and those oth­ers with a propen­si­ty to com­mit sex­u­al crimes.”

It added, “For too long the so­ci­ety has seen the ram­pant com­mis­sion of sex crimes, in­clud­ing the most sav­age and bru­tal at­tacks against women, chil­dren and even the el­der­ly. Sta­tis­tics demon­strate that sex­u­al crimes are the sec­ond-high­est, af­ter mur­der, be­fore the High Courts of T&T.” Their official s shared:

Last month alone the po­lice ser­vice held 29 per­sons for sex­u­al­ly re­lat­ed crimes main­ly against chil­dren, which led to a to­tal of 44 charges. They continue to see a sharp increase in crimes against chil­dren.

In its state­ment, the min­istry said the Gov­ern­ment stands com­mit­ted to strik­ing against all forms of crim­i­nal­i­ty and the Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment) Act, 2019 is yet an­oth­er demon­stra­tion by this Gov­ern­ment of its com­mit­ment to tack­le hard crime through ground­break­ing leg­is­la­tion. It said through the act law en­force­ment will now be em­pow­ered to bet­ter mon­i­tor and track of­fend­ers who must fre­quent­ly re­port to the po­lice sta­tion and pro­vide every es­sen­tial de­tail about them­selves, in­clud­ing their fin­ger­prints and DNA. And most strik­ing­ly vic­tims of sex­u­al crimes can seek com­pen­sa­tion from the of­fend­er if they con­tract a Sex­u­al­ly Trans­mit­ted In­fec­tion (STI).

Cayman Perspective:

Various successive governments have been unwilling to implement a sex offender's registry in the Cayman Islands despite a publically submitted petition. Sandra Hill submitted a petition with over 1,100 signatures at the time. There has never been an update on the petition's progress.

In November 2011 Royal Cayman Islands Police Service Superintendent Marlon Bodden said police have previously supported the idea of a public sex offender registry, but establishing one is a government policy decision – not something police would do on their own.

Out of frustration, she set up a Facebook page sex offender registry but after police threats to arrest her for it she handed it over to overseas parties. CMR research shows it is not currently maintained despite a significant following.

Sign sex offender's registry petition