RHON­DOR DOWLAT

The T&T Pub­lic Sex Of­fend­ers web­site went on­line yes­ter­day. How­ev­er, the po­lice is warn­ing that it is a se­ri­ous off­fence to re­pro­duce what’s on the web­site, in­clud­ing the pic­ture of the sex of­fend­er, the name and ad­dress.

Speak­ing with the Guardian Me­dia hours af­ter the web­sites launch, head of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Gen­der-based Vi­o­lence Unit, Claire Guy-Al­leyne, said while the web­site brings an aware­ness for the com­mu­ni­ty, peo­ple can­not ac­cess it and screen­shot in­for­ma­tion to post on so­cial me­dia.

“They can on­ly view. They can­not re­pro­duce any­thing, as it is a se­ri­ous of­fence,” Guy-Al­leyne said.

On the web­site up to yes­ter­day evening, there were 16 of­fend­ers list­ed, with in­for­ma­tion in­clud­ing their names, alias­es, date of birth, sex, ad­dress, con­vic­tions and date of con­vic­tions.

There is al­so a no­tice on the web­site which reads: “Warn­ing of pros­e­cu­tion for the in­ten­tion­al and un­law­ful re­pro­duc­tion, shar­ing or use of in­for­ma­tion con­tained on this web­site. Any per­son who in­ten­tion­al­ly and with­out law­ful ex­cuse or jus­ti­fi­ca­tion re­pro­duces, shares or us­es any in­for­ma­tion con­tained on this web­site , com­mits an of­fence and is li­able on sum­ma­ry con­vic­tion to a fine of twen­ty-five thou­sand dol­lars and to im­pris­on­ment for three years. Sec­tion 48 (4) of the Sex­u­al Of­fences Act Chap­ter 11:28 (as amend­ed by Act Num­ber 19 of 2019).”

Guy-Al­leyne said pri­or to this pub­lic web­site, the TTPS had a sex of­fend­ers reg­istry that it was not pub­lic. How­evee, she said an amend­ment to the act gave the Com­mis­sion­er au­thor­i­ty to main­tain a reg­istry.

Guy-Al­leyne said this means a mag­is­trate or judge can act on it and on­ly per­sons con­vict­ed of sex crimes and com­ing out of the prison sys­tem can be post­ed to the reg­istry.

“This means that per­sons in com­mu­ni­ties and po­lice of­fi­cers will now be aware of the sex of­fend­ers in their com­mu­ni­ty so you could be very cau­tious. It could even be a de­ter­rent as well, be­cause if a sex of­fend­er re­alise that he’s go­ing to be reg­is­tered as a sex of­fend­er and liv­ing in a com­mu­ni­ty, he would un­der­stand that he would be looked at in a par­tic­u­lar way, so it may pre­vent him from even com­mit­ting crimes of that na­ture. I think it will be a tool that will re­duce sex of­fend­ing, even sex­u­al as­saults, when they re­alise their face will be all over and where they are lo­cat­ed,” she said.

Al­so con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, at­tor­ney, youth ad­vo­cate and co-founder of Op­er­a­tion Glob­al Sex Of­fend­ers Reg­istry, Jonathan Bha­gan, said the web­site was a first step in the process.

“While the reg­istry web­site is an im­por­tant step, we are on­ly now where the USA was 20 years ago and the Gov­ern­ment must learn to ap­ply the lat­est tech­nol­o­gy to fight crime, tech­nol­o­gy which I have been of­fer­ing to them for years.”

Bha­gan said stud­ies such as those done by Prescott and Rock­off show that the main re­duc­tion in crime from a sex of­fend­er reg­istry is caused by the po­lice fol­low­ing up on of­fend­ers with­in com­mu­ni­ties.

“Of­fend­ers al­ready on the reg­istry may have an in­creased risk of re­of­fend­ing ac­cord­ing to stud­ies, but the pub­lic reg­istry has been shown to de­crease crime by de­ter­ring new sex of­fend­ers.”

In the con­text of T&T’s out of con­trol crime rate, how­ev­er, Bha­gan said a pub­lic reg­istry makes sense de­spite the risk of in­creas­ing re­of­fend­ing for per­sons on the reg­istry.

“The pub­lic is, how­ev­er, warned that the vast ma­jor­i­ty of sex of­fend­ers in our so­ci­ety have not been ar­rest­ed by the po­lice and con­vict­ed by the court, so they must still take care for their safe­ty for per­sons not on the reg­istry.”

Bha­gan pre­sent­ed a project to the Gov­ern­ment in 2020 to con­nect T&T’s reg­istry to the Unit­ed States us­ing Of­fend­er­Watch soft­ware.

“This will al­low track­ing of sex of­fend­ers en­ter­ing our coun­try and track­ing of of­fend­ers us­ing so­cial me­dia apps such as Snapchat on­line when they mes­sage chil­dren. This is called Op­er­a­tion Glob­al Sex Of­fend­er’s Reg­istry,” he said.

“This project was fea­tured on Fox News in 2020, yet I still await a pos­i­tive re­sponse from the Gov­ern­ment. This was sent to both Faris Al-Rawi and Amery Browne in years past,” he added.

Un­der the Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment) Bill 2021, which was de­bat­ed in the Sen­ate in June 2021, two sex of­fend­ers’ reg­is­ters were pro­posed—a web­site for the pub­lic and a reg­is­ter for the TTPS.

The min­istry point­ed out, “Clause 9 of the Sex­u­al Of­fences (Amend­ment) Bill, 2021 specif­i­cal­ly pro­vides that the pub­lic sex of­fend­er web­site will con­tain in­ter alia, the names of con­vict­ed sex of­fend­ers.”

Then-At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Al-Rawi had said that peo­ple will have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ap­ply to the court for their in­for­ma­tion to be ex­empt­ed from the web­site.

The reg­istry’s link is https://sex­of­fend­ers.gov.tt/