By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

CRISIS Centre director Sandra Dean-Patterson has warned against opening the Sexual Offenders Register to the public, saying giving access in a small country like The Bahamas could fuel vigilantism, weaken monitoring efforts and fail to make children safer.

Ms Dean-Patterson said the Crisis Centre supports the register and had long pushed for its creation because of growing concern over the sexual abuse and exploitation of children. 

However, she said access should be restricted to agencies responsible for child protection and offender supervision, including the police, social services and the prison system.

Her comments follow a recent Eyewitness News report in which a mother said she believed a convicted paedophile was targeting her ten-year-old child. The mother said she reported the matter to police but was told there was little authorities could do because she had not caught the suspected offender in the act.

“We were alarmed at the increasing number of children that were being violated and exploited in the country, and we thought it was important for us to get a handle on it, be aware of what the problem is, and make sure that we're addressing it,” Ms Dean-Patterson said yesterday.

Although the register is now in place, she said the Crisis Centre does not support public access.“I know the public would like to know who these sex offenders are, but we are not the United States, the United Kingdom, or a size where you can identify these sex offenders and have them somewhere where they're not going to hurt children,” she said.

She said the information should be held by officials with a direct duty to protect children and monitor offenders after their release.“What we have advocated is that the persons, the persons who need to know, who are obligated, who are directed to protect children, are the ones who have access to this register and who are responsible for the sex offenders who are released, that is, the police, social services, the prison,” she said.

“Those are the key people who should have this information and could deal with the information in a way that protects children, but also doesn't enable vigilantism, which has been the experience in other countries where the sex offender register was public.”

Ms Dean-Patterson pointed to the United States, where residency restrictions have produced unintended consequences.“

In Miami, for example, where there's a public sex offenders register, there are parks where the sex offenders have to live away from schools and parks and public places, so you'd have to do all of those things to make sure,” she said.

“What we're doing now is we're putting the onus on the prison, on the police and on social workers to be aware of when these predators are released and put whatever safety measures in place.”She acknowledged that any restricted-access system depends on public confidence in the agencies responsible for enforcing it.

“It calls for the public to have confidence in the system, and I don't know that the public is as confident or comfortable with the system protecting our children as it should be,” she said.

“It is a discussion that has to be ongoing, and we need to put all sides to it, but we have to be alarmed and vociferous about our refusal to accept or to tolerate the violation of our children.”

The register was established under the Sexual Offenders Amendment Act, passed in 2014 and brought into force in July 2019. 

In 2022, the government began digitising the system with the unveiling of a kiosk at Wulff Road Police Station.Then National Security Minister Wayne Munroe said at the time that a dedicated unit within the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services had been fully staffed since July 2021 to manage the registry.

Mr Munroe said offenders sentenced after July 24, 2019, were required to register and report their place of residence within 72 hours of release. 

They are also required to notify authorities if they move or travel for more than seven days.He also warned that information about released offenders should not be used for retaliation, saying experiences in other jurisdictions showed such actions could lead courts to remove offenders from registries, weakening authorities’ ability to monitor them.