Orville Taylor | Expose them?

“Machine!” said the fifth former looking admiringly at the car arriving onto the school compound. An undergraduate on the plantation, said “Nice car, sir,” a comment replicated at a deep rural school, with an over-representation of social pathologies among its student.

Unlike the high schoolers, who were a captive audience and about to hear the boring details of hurdling the various social obstacles, avoiding the gun, drugs, improper sexual behaviour and abuse of girls, the university youth might not have known who or more importantly, what the driver is.

An immediate response to him was, “Yea, but it is only a car and means nothing”. Indeed, “I might be an ‘old fassy’ or the reverse, because, appearances can be deceptive.”

Many demons live in whitened sepulchres and are coyotes clad in sheep clothing. For the record, I dislike the ‘good shepherd’ imagery; because he is no different from the wolf. After all, what he does is actually the gastronomical equivalent of sexual grooming. Ultimately, after finally stripping the sheep of her outer garments, he leads her to the slaughter. Trust me, it could happen to ‘ewe’.

With the gruesome attacks on children, with some resulting in homicides of these innocents, there is now renewed call for the opening up of a sexual offenders’ registry.

A knee-jerk reaction, at least one of my gay associates was making the call. Quietly, I reminded him that under current laws, if the courts proved that he had mutually conjugal relations with Robin, his sidekick, he would also be listed too.

OUGHT TO KNOW

True, there is a constitutional right to privacy. However, given that some of the people with shiniest images are reprobates, abusers and paedophiles, hiding in full view, the public ought to know. Lawyers often grapple with the delicate balance between individuals’ rights and the state’s obligation to serve the national or public interest.

For example, a right to strike, in pursuance of an industrial dispute, can be trumped if such a work stoppage in an essential service, is harmful to a large portion or vulnerable groups in a population. Early childhood teachers are in this category.

When it comes to convicted sex offenders, released after serving their time, the conventional practice, especially in metropolitan countries, is for them to be labelled with the scarlet letter for life, and the average citizen or group can simply go into a data bank and pull the information out.

However, there are clearly much more than meets the eye, when it comes to sex offenders.

First of all, is there something special about these deviants, that set them apart from others? Doubtless, rapists and child molesters in particular, are among the worst of the worst. In prisons, they are so reviled that not only do they repulse hardened criminals, but these are marked for death, if left to mingle with the general population in the correctional institutions.

Men who violate women, with or without sexual violence, are also at the bottom rung of the dung heap and femicidal men get stabbed often.

There is something visceral about sex offenders, which makes them marked for life. Do we treat them as a monolithic category? A 20-year-old youth, just out of sixth form who has ‘consensual’ sex with his 15-year-old girlfriend, is a sex offender, even if they marry after. Worse, if she is 17 and they exchange photos of their genitalia, as he promises to wait until she is 18; there is an offence of child pornography. Registration for life.

From a strictly constitutional point of view, the need to protect the community supersedes the right of the individual. Nevertheless, what is the thinking behind sexual offenders, which make them not just repulsive, but incorrigible?

Is there conclusive science that sex offenders are irreparable? Can a sexual deviant ever be reformed? After all, being forced to wear the label is life-long punishment.

CHRONIC ‘ILLNESS’

Now, do not be mistaken! This is not a pro or contra argument. If the scientific evidence is that one can never truly be cured, and thus; it is a chronic ‘illness’, which must be monitored and treated continuously, we might have a solid basis for an open registry.

If one has certain kinds of cardiovascular or ocular illnesses, he is barred from some occupations. So, if a rapist is ‘incurable’ should he ever be let out in the first place? Why not life sentences, like capital murder?

For those who advocate castration, we should recognise that rape is not merely a sex crime. It is a crime of violence. Therefore, a gelded rapist, whose motivation is not simply testosterone, will commit other heinous crimes of violence, including use of other instruments to violate the victim and to murder.

The critical question is, ‘what percentage of sex offenders are recidivists and what are the enabling circumstances or correlates, which affect the proclivity to reoffend? Given the high level of violence in this society, should we also have a registry for other offences?

Do we have an entitlement to know if the upstanding neighbour, with the collar served a sentence for vehicular manslaughter, because he used to be a ‘rum head’? Science suggests that alcoholics are never truly ‘cured’.

What of murderers or drug dealers? Having served a 15-year sentence, and returned to ‘decent’ society, should these persons be monitored for life?

This is not a moot point, because our political system does not preclude criminals from becoming elected legislators. It only blocks them from being employed as public officers, who report to them.

In a society where we also index many of the violence crimes, including violence against women and children to not only marginalised vulnerable youth, but also powerful prominent men who drive nice cars and live in nice houses, do we need to know if our neighbour was an embezzler, convicted or had property confiscated under the Proceeds of Crime Act?

It is not an easy road, but we must think carefully and act wisely.

Dr Orville Taylor is senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology at The University of the West Indies, a radio talk-show host, and author of ‘Broken Promises, Hearts and Pockets’. Send feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and tayloronblackline@hotmail.com