Now is the time to seriously consider establishing a sex offender registry in the Cayman Islands, according to Minister of Tourism Kenneth Bryan.
“We have to have the discussion,” he told his fellow MPs during a debate on the potential legalisation of chemical sprays for self-defence in the House of Parliament last week.
The minister said the public is getting more concerned about their safety, as the private member’s motion showed, and having a registry could help to protect the most vulnerable.
“I hope that me bringing it up on the floor tonight is enough to spark a conversation nationally about this matter,” he said during the debate on Thursday, 21 Sept.
The topic of establishing a sex offender registry in Cayman has been a matter of discussion for a number of years.
A draft Sex Offender Registry Bill (2009) proposed by then health minister Anthony Eden was presented for public consultation in February 2009.
However, no further progress on it was made.
“I think it’s time that we take it serious from a parliamentary perspective,” Bryan said.
He said people want to be able to defend themselves from danger and that could come in the form of the “pre-emptive action of knowledge”.
Those who have spoken out against a register in the past are concerned that, if names are made public, it could lead to the identification of the victims, he told Parliament.
“People will say, small community… if you know who the predator is, chances are you will also acknowledge who the victim is, which is not something that we want to do.
“But there’s strategies and ways of getting around that… we can have something more tailor made for Cayman,” Bryan said.
Crime prevention
The minister recalled that a large majority of those who have been convicted of sexual offences against women go on to commit a second offence.
He said having a public register could have helped to prevent the repeat offences.
“A woman or a man could have acted a bit more cautiously around an individual if they’re aware, because they’re in the neighbourhood or work offices or so forth,” Bryan said.
The minister told Parliament there will be some convicted criminals who think they should not be on the register.
“Of course, yes, some people may end up having push backs and say OK, I made one mistake and I’m being penalised for it for the rest of my life,” he said.
But he reiterated that a national conversation could allow “those who have issues with it, those who support it” to express their views.
“And maybe we can actually finally decide, as a country, whether it’s necessary or not,’ he said.
In response to a request for comment, a Progressives party spokesperson told the Compass they do not object to a national conversation on a sex offender registry.
Ongoing discourse
Under the draft Sex Offender Registry Bill, which was presented for public consultation in February 2009, convicted sex offenders would have been required to register their name, address, workplace and owned property with the registry.
The draft bill defined sex offenders as men and women convicted of sex crimes, including rape, indecent assault, defilement and incest, or administering drugs to a person.
It was not clear at the time who would be responsible for the registry, but several agencies were suggested in the bill.
The registry was not to be made public and instead would only be accessible to the authorities listed in the proposal in the “interest of the due administration of justice”.
After the draft bill’s publication, members of the public were given two months to comment.
Later that year, Attorney General Samuel Bulgin said there was much work needed on a proposal for Cayman’s first sex offender registry before it could become reality.
Speaking at the Finance Committee meeting in the Legislative Assembly at the time, he said, “The question is whether it is workable.”
He said he was concerned about simply cutting and pasting legislation from larger jurisdictions such as the US or the UK.
Sandra Catron, now Hill, was a vocal proponent to the bill, and presented a petition with 1,100 signatures calling for a registry to the government in November 2010.
It was due to be taken to Cabinet for review, but a year later she told the Compass she had not heard anything.
In June 2013, the Human Rights Commission published a report written by student chapter of the Cayman Bar Association on the creation of a sex offender registry.
It debated the protection of vulnerable members of society against the breach of citizens’ right to privacy.
And in July that year, police investigated a Facebook page, set up by Catron, entitled ‘sex offender registry’.
Related Videos
