In light of the sex­u­al as­saults and bru­tal killings of nu­mer­ous women in the coun­try, the fear of sex­u­al preda­tors and the gen­er­al safe­ty of cit­i­zens, es­pe­cial­ly women have been high­light­ed. Not on­ly are cit­i­zens ac­tive­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in protests to demon­strate their frus­tra­tion about the brazen ac­tions of vi­o­lent sex­u­al preda­tors, but it al­so rais­es im­por­tant ques­tions about the char­ac­ter­is­tics of these sex­u­al per­pe­tra­tors, why do they in­dulge in such vi­o­lent acts and what can be done to im­pede this type of be­hav­iour.

These are chal­leng­ing ques­tions be­cause un­der­stand­ing sex­u­al of­fend­ing is com­plex and iden­ti­fy­ing who among us are sex­u­al preda­tors can be dif­fi­cult. Nonethe­less, crim­i­nol­o­gists, psy­chol­o­gists and oth­er so­cial sci­en­tists are will­ing to in­ves­ti­gate sex­u­al of­fend­ing in T&T, es­pe­cial­ly the salient fac­tors that con­tribute to sex­u­al of­fend­ing against women. Par­tic­u­lar­ly, main­stream and so­cial me­dia plat­forms high­light­ed and still con­tin­ue to show re­sound­ing con­cerns about the count­less vi­o­lent sex­u­al at­tacks against women. Al­though, they are not the on­ly vic­tims of sex crimes, dis­cus­sions sur­round­ing women be­com­ing vic­tims of sex­u­al as­sault have come to the fore­front and many ques­tions are be­ing raised re­gard­ing what can be done to pro­tect the coun­try’s women from bru­tal and some­times fa­tal sex­u­al at­tacks.

Sex­u­al preda­tors: Who are they?

Sex­u­al preda­tors are in­di­vid­u­als with­in so­ci­ety who are in­volved in un­law­ful sex­u­al acts and in T&T this in­cludes, but is not lim­it­ed to rape, griev­ous sex­u­al as­sault, in­cest as well as the ab­duc­tion of a fe­male for sex­u­al in­ter­course. As such, there are laws that pro­hib­it sex­u­al ac­tiv­i­ties with peo­ple un­der the age of 18 years old or non-con­sent­ing adults. Yet, sex­u­al of­fend­ers are con­sis­tent­ly dis­re­gard­ing these laws. Why is this? Why are there in­di­vid­u­als in T&T who fail to abide by the laws around sex­u­al be­hav­iour? Re­search in­to sex­u­al of­fend­ing has shown that the root of sex­u­al of­fend­ing is dy­nam­ic and it en­com­pass­es a range of fac­tors, some of which can help ex­plain why some males in T&T are sex­u­al preda­tors. In this way, we can un­der­stand some of the un­der­ly­ing prob­lems fac­ing cit­i­zens and pos­si­ble so­lu­tions to these crime types.

Glob­al­ly, ad­verse child­hood ex­pe­ri­ences has been a key ex­pla­na­tion for sex­u­al of­fend­ing. Par­tic­u­lar­ly, so­cial sci­en­tists pro­vide com­pre­hen­sive in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to how child­hood abuse and parental ne­glect plays a sig­nif­i­cant role in pro­duc­ing sex­u­al­ly ag­gres­sive chil­dren and pro­gres­sion in­to adult sex­u­al of­fend­ing (Burgess et al, 1988; Gra­ham, 1996; Ro­mano and De Lu­ca, 1997). Re­search find­ings show that chil­dren who are ex­posed to ei­ther sex­u­al, phys­i­cal or emo­tion­al abuse have a greater like­li­hood of be­com­ing mal­ad­just­ed adults, re­sult­ing in sex­u­al of­fend­ing. Giv­en these facts, it draws at­ten­tion to the preva­lence of child abuse in T&T and how does it con­tribute to sex­u­al of­fend­ing. Sex­u­al per­pe­tra­tors them­selves may have been vic­timised and the na­ture and ex­tent of their abuse can be in­flu­en­tial in the sub­se­quent sex­u­al of­fend­ing.

When con­sid­er­ing the char­ac­ter­is­tics of those who com­mit sex crimes, it is per­ti­nent to in­ves­ti­gate how they are be­ing ed­u­cat­ed on sex­u­al in­ter­course, par­tic­u­lar­ly what is ac­cept­able and un­ac­cept­able moral and le­gal be­hav­iours. The lack of sex ed­u­ca­tion and how to ap­pro­pri­ate­ly treat women dur­ing sex­u­al en­coun­ters is be­ing omit­ted from con­ver­sa­tions with young males in so­ci­ety (Epps et al, 2004). Is this the case in T&T? Not on­ly is it alarm­ing that young peo­ple may have mis­con­cep­tions about law­ful sex­u­al con­duct but con­cerns about how and where young peo­ple are learn­ing about sex and the treat­ment of women needs to be ex­am­ined. Males in T&T may be re­ceiv­ing in­ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing ap­pro­pri­ate sex­u­al be­hav­iours. As ex­plained by Brown and Schwartz (2006), to tack­le such an is­sue re­quires ed­u­cat­ing the younger pop­u­la­tion about bound­aries when in­ter­act­ing with oth­ers and un­der­stand­ing so­cial cues that can lead to sex­u­al of­fend­ing.

Aware­ness of men­tal health ill­ness­es has sig­nif­i­cant­ly in­creased in T&T, but the rate of se­vere men­tal ill­ness among sex­u­al of­fend­ers is un­known. Re­searchers Alden and Hodges (2007) demon­strat­ed in their re­search that psy­chot­ic per­son­al­i­ty and sub­stance use dis­or­ders are as­so­ci­at­ed with the in­creased risk of sex­u­al of­fend­ing. Some of these dis­or­ders in­clude, de­pres­sive dis­or­ders, bipo­lar dis­or­ders, At­ten­tion Deficit/Hy­per­ac­tive Dis­or­der (AD­HD), al­co­hol de­pen­dence dis­or­ders as well as in­tel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty/de­vel­op­men­tal de­lay. In these in­stances, there is a greater propen­si­ty for men to have the in­abil­i­ty to con­trol sex­u­al urges and fur­ther­more, be­come ag­gres­sive. Like many oth­er coun­tries, the role of men­tal dis­or­ders in sex­u­al of­fend­ing in T&T has not been doc­u­ment­ed. This calls for steps to be tak­en to en­force manda­to­ry lo­cal psy­cho­log­i­cal test­ing to de­tect dis­or­ders, psy­chother­a­py and med­ical treat­ment for cit­i­zens with both men­tal and per­son­al­i­ty dis­or­ders as well as anger man­age­ment and more ac­ces­si­ble sub­stance abuse pro­grammes.

Iden­ti­fy­ing a po­ten­tial sex of­fend­er

In­ter­na­tion­al­ly, one of the tools used to as­sist po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tions in­to vi­o­lent sex­u­al crimes is of­fend­er pro­fil­ing (Fox and Far­ring­ton, 2018). This method can al­so as­sist women in T&T to iden­ti­fy sex­u­al preda­tors be­cause it high­lights be­hav­iour­al styles and char­ac­ter­is­tics of a se­r­i­al sex­u­al of­fend­er. Of par­tic­u­lar in­ter­est is the method that sex­u­al preda­tors use to ap­proach vic­tims, es­pe­cial­ly if they are strangers or un­known to the vic­tim. Whether it is in the day­time or night time, se­r­i­al sex­u­al preda­tors gen­er­al­ly tend to im­per­son­ate a cer­tain char­ac­ter. One pop­u­lar ex­am­ple of an im­per­son­at­ing char­ac­ter in T&T is a taxi dri­ver who in­di­rect­ly ap­pre­hend­ed the vic­tim and dis­guised their sex­u­al in­ten­tions. In such cas­es, while not a guar­an­tee in spot­ting a po­ten­tial sex­u­al of­fend­er, un­fa­mil­iar peo­ple dur­ing rou­tine ac­tiv­i­ties are close­ly ob­served. Stalk­ing and fol­low­ing vic­tims be­fore ap­proach­ing them is an­oth­er key iden­ti­fy­ing fac­tor of sex­u­al preda­tors as they tend to tar­get and then pur­sue their vic­tim. Gen­er­al­ly, they at­tack when vic­tims are vul­ner­a­ble such as in cas­es when they are alone and in­ca­pable of de­fend­ing them­selves.

Pro­tec­tion and mit­i­ga­tion: How can we achieve this?

In a unique, cul­tur­al­ly-rich coun­try such as T&T, the ap­proach to treat­ing with sex­u­al of­fend­ing needs to be mul­ti­fac­eted and this in it­self is re­source-in­ten­sive. Stud­ies have shown that sex of­fend­ers tend to lack vic­tim em­pa­thy, dis­play emo­tion­al lone­li­ness and pos­sess in­ad­e­quate prob­lem-solv­ing abil­i­ties (Fish­er, Beech, & Browne, 1999; Mar­shall & Bar­ba­ree,1990). Con­se­quent­ly, these fac­tors may con­tribute to the on­set of sex crimes. As such, in­ter­ven­tions strate­gies such as the ear­ly de­tec­tion of per­son­al­i­ty and men­tal dis­or­ders is cru­cial to suc­cess­ful­ly tack­le the is­sue of sex of­fend­ing. Psy­cho­log­i­cal test­ing, coun­selling and med­ical treat­ment are nec­es­sary to iden­ti­fy and treat an­ti-so­cial be­hav­iours as well as en­hance emo­tion­al com­pe­ten­cies to pre­vent and mit­i­gate sex­u­al vi­o­lence in the coun­try.

Sev­er­al crim­i­nol­o­gists have sub­scribed to the de­ter­rence the­o­ry mod­el that sex of­fend­ers should be pun­ished for their crimes. The fo­cus on sex­u­al of­fences has now shift­ed to the crim­i­nal act and the ap­pro­pri­ate le­gal re­spons­es that should fol­low. Im­pris­on­ment of sex of­fend­ers is val­ued be­cause it pro­tects wider so­ci­ety es­pe­cial­ly women and it can po­ten­tial­ly en­cour­age cit­i­zens to obey the law due to the fear of be­ing con­vict­ed. How­ev­er, the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem in T&T has to prove ef­fi­cient in charg­ing, con­vict­ing and re­ha­bil­i­tat­ing sex of­fend­ers for the de­ter­rence mod­el to be suc­cess­ful.

Who is Dr Mal­isa Nep­tune-Fi­garo?

Dr Mal­isa Nep­tune-Fi­garo is a crim­i­nol­o­gist and lec­tur­er in the De­part­ment of Be­hav­iour­al Sci­ences at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. She at­tained her PhD in Crim­i­nol­o­gy and Crim­i­nal Jus­tice at Flori­da State Uni­ver­si­ty and al­so worked at that in­sti­tu­tion as a lec­tur­er and re­search an­a­lyst. She al­so serves as a mem­ber on sev­er­al com­mit­tees, name­ly, the Po­lice Re­search Group (PRG) and the Amer­i­can So­ci­ety of Crim­i­nol­o­gy (ASC).