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Professor Opal Palmer Adisa, Leonard Green, President of the Advocates Association of Jamaica and JFJ Executive Director Mickel Jackson
By Prince Moore
Pressure is mounting for the government to make the sexual offenders registry public to prevent repeat offenders from carrying out attacks on unsuspecting individuals.
The Sex Offender Registry was set up in 2014 following the passage of the Sexual Offences Act of 2009.
Access to the registry is not available to the public.
On Monday the police revealed that the suspect in the disappearance of primary school teacher Danielle Anglin was a convicted sex offender in Jamaica as well as Antigua & Barbuda.
Gender specialist, Professor Opal Palmer Adisa, says it is important that consideration be given to making the register public.
"We have to decide who are we going to protect - our citizens and our children and our women? Or are we going to protect those who are convicted and have been perpetrators of a terrible crime. So yes, I do think it should be public and I'm very mindful that because of our culture and what we call community justice, that there could be some victimisation and I would certainly want to mitigate against that. But my first and primary concern is to ensure that people like this teacher and others are not victimised and killed because of a known perpetrator," she argued Wednesday on Radio Jamaica's Beyond the Headlines.
Leonard Green, President of the Advocates Association of Jamaica, said while he supports making the Sex Offender Registry public, there should also be a caveat to protect the rights of individuals who commit minor offences.
"Under our legislation, a person could get on that register by virtue of a simple offence of sexual touching in certain circumstances, which is really a Parish Court offence. So...we need very carefully to ensure that persons' rights are dealt with in a way that they are not discriminated against. So the whole business of balancing protection with discrimination is one of the things that we should take into account when giving consideration to this particular issue," he suggested.
But Executive Director at Jamaicans for Justice, Mickel Jackson, has said she is not in favour of a public registry in the current form.
She is of the view that the sex offenders registry should be risk based and not offence based.
"Ensure that it looks, for example, at the nature of the crime, whether or not there's likelihood of the person reoffending and perhaps broaden some of the areas that are there.... The categories that are there, I think they can be broadened and certainly strengthened. But I think the question that I would ask, are these categories widely known to the public? Are we utilising the provisions under the registry before we say go wide, go public? So I think that type of assessment is going to be needed. And the last thing here is that I think we have to be guided by data," she asserted.
Ms. Jackson and Mr. Green were also guests on Beyond the Headlines.
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