Caution: Sex-offender registry

Orville Taylor, Contributor

If you have been convicted of a gun crime, should there be a publicly accessible document for persons who have desires to employ you? Everyone who has been sentenced for theft must be in a dossier for crooks, and it doesn't matter if she is a 'crutcher' (kleptomaniac) who stole a G-string, one who underinvoiced his income tax, or embezzled $18 million from his employers.

There is an underlying adage we learned in school and in our peer groups. Even our parents taught us, "Once a thief, always a thief," as we were told to shun the little scoundrel who dipped his hands in Mr Chin's thread bag.

Although Ranny never stole again, or was never caught stealing again, we called him 'Chetlaow!' for at least the next 12 years until he completed high school and migrated. It was ironic because it is my only recollection of him stealing, and he went on to become a lawyer, where, like all members of that esteemed profession, he shows complete honesty and fairness in his dealings with others and the court. Yet, the stigma remained with him, and when I met him again in college, I mischievously introduced him to my American friend as Chet, an American-sounding name.

However, there is something fundamentally wrong, because Christianity teaches us that we can be reformed and saved in this life. The greatest Christian soldier, Paul, was the big nasty Saul, the persecutor par excellence of the early 'Jesusophiles'. Our modern legal system supposedly is now oriented towards restitutive law, as opposed to the old repressive and punitive law. Thus, the term is no longer the penal system or the penitentiary, but the correctional services and correctional centre, respectively.

OBJECTIVE TO PUNISH

The significant difference between the two types of legal philosophies is that with repressive law, the objective is simply to punish the offender, because he cannot be fixed. Thus, he is removed like the right hand which offends, and his punishment is to deter other would-be criminals.

On the other hand, restitutive law still carries the concept of punishment, but with the intention of re-establishing normality, if possible. It assumes that an offender, once convicted and punished, if necessary, he is rehabilitated. Punishment is finite and ends at some point. One does not continue to be penalised after the initial sentence is completed because the person has paid his debt to society - another corny cliché.

Yet, curiously, there is an apparent presumption that persons who carry out sex crimes are particularly incorrigible and present a danger or recidivism which is different from other criminals. Is it true that sex offenders are very likely to continue, or is it 'strike one and you're out'? Something seems terribly wrong with the idea that a person has to be punished for the rest of his life, unless one is arguing that there is nothing that one can do to reform a sexual deviant, however that person is defined.

The issue of sex and sexuality has been a contentious matter in Jamaica for the past few years, and with the anti-sodomy law and gay-rights debate, these are squarely on the agenda. First of all, it is government which defines what a sexual offence is, and despite the argument that government does not belong in people's bedrooms, it does lots in its attempt to regulate sexual behaviour, although it can do nothing to curb desire or orientation.

RATING SEX OFFENCES

Some sex offences are clear, especially if they involve the unwanted intimacy from aggressors. Thus, rape and forcible buggery are obvious offences. However, if a 17-year-old gets adventurous with his 15-year-old classmate, and confuses SEX with CSEC or CXC, he is a sex offender. Depending on how smart the legislators were, he could be labelled a sex offender and wear the scarlet letter for the rest of his life. Carnal abuse would be his charge, because a 15-year-old cannot give sexual consent in law.

Thus, like the extremely violent sex attackers who destroy lives at gunpoint and 'deflowers' children, this youth could be tagged for life and not seen as capable of reform. The truth is, there is a primordial antipathy we feel towards sexual predators, and even in prisons they have to be specially treated because the hot skull inmates will carve them up.

However, a man who consorts with his cousin might 'boil good soup', but in some societies it is not only repugnant, but a crime. If a playboy and his girlfriend, who is two weeks shy of 18, travel on his yacht to the United States (US), he dare not have sex with her after they enter American waters. And if she remains in the US until she is 18 and they had anal sex at sea, she better not boast about it or curse him publicly when they break up, or somebody is going to prison here in Jamaica.

We have recently passed the Sexual Offences (Registration of Sex Offenders) Regulations, and at least one advocacy group has lauded it. Indeed, given that the Sexual Offences Act was passed into law in 2009, the establishment of a sex-offender registry and the passage of a set of regulations are overdue.

However, as with the hasty deliberations and pressure
being exerted to carry out pension reform, I am cautious of the manner
in which the regulations were passed and the level of opposition. Since
this is a subject that touches on the constitutional rights of
individuals to privacy, the greater good of the people had better be
clearly seen as benefiting from this intrusion on the convict, who has
done his time.

The US, the United Kingdom and Australia are some
of the many countries with registries. America's, in particular, is
sophisticated and user-friendly, and one can find offenders at one's
fingertips. The Australians, in rationalising the need for a registry,
declared, "The registration scheme was established in 2004 with the goal
of reducing the risk of harm to children by sexual abuse." A team of
Canadian researchers reported, "Sex-offender registries are a political
response to significant community concerns about the presumed risk of
new sex offences committed by strangers."

Nonetheless,
does the evidence support the policy? Indeed, a study by the University
of Michigan and Columbia University found registering sex offenders
with the police could significantly reduce the chance that they will
re-offend. Ironically, they also discovered that making that same
information available to the public can backfire, because "convicted sex
offenders become more likely to commit crimes when their information is
made public, because the associated psychological, social, or financial
costs make a crime-free life relatively less
desirable,"

LITTLE EFFECT ON CRIME

Still, another study, conducted by the University of
Chicago, revealed that registration does not reduce crime rates,
recidivism or sex crime levels. Thus, the research "... calls into
question the rationale for creating registries in the first place.
Sex-offender registries do little to increase public safety, either in
practice or in potential."

Interestingly, the US
Bureau of Justice Statistics shows that sex offenders, at 43 per cent,
had lower re-arrest rates for any offence than non-sex offenders with 68
per cent. However, sex offenders were about four times more likely to
commit other sex crimes. This might suggest that there is some
proclivity that sex offenders have towards their peculiar type of crime.
But in the same breath, shouldn't we simply have a criminal register
for all felons?

Doubtless, crime prevention needs
urgent attention, but there is need for further research here, and most
important, contributions from more sectors, because we simply don't know
enough.

The haste is worrisome.

Dr
Orville Taylor is senior lecturer in sociology at the University of the
West Indies and a radio talk-show host. Email feedback to
columns@gleanerjm.com and
tayloronblackline@hotmail.com.