Dominica to consider registry
The Government of Dominica is open to the idea of introducing a sex offenders registry but not all are in favor.
Currently, only Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and Belize have sex offender registry laws in some form. However, the Antiguan and Barbuda government just last week referred their National Sex Offender Register Bill, 2022 to a select committee after an opposition legislator, Trevor Walker, raised several concerns including the possibility of infringing on the rights of the sex offender.
The bill, which was tabled in Parliament last Monday proposes that members of the public who wish to know if an individual has been convicted of a sex crime and is on the register must apply to the police commissioner to get that information.
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FAC NOTE: If you would like to share your thoughts with the Domnica Ministry of National Security and Home Affairs , you can email them at nationalsecurity@dominica.gov.dm
Also, the Minister of Justice, Rayburn Blackmoore, can be emailed at gis@dominica.gov.dm
Here’s my email to them. I hope I was able to convey our message and didn’t mess it up?
To whom it may concern:
My name is Tim P. I am a member of the FAC- Florida Action Committee. I was informed that the Dominican government is considering a SO registry. In short I would like to say that the SO registry model that the U.S. government and particularly the state of Florida uses completely infringes on the rights of almost every offender. The registry has gotten completely out of control. Especially here in Florida and a few other states.
Not only does the registry do little to nothing to stop someone from re-offending. It does more harm than good to both society and the offender. Most offenders on the registry can not find gainful employment, suitable housing, financial assistance, etc. and due to all that and exclusion zones have made many offenders become homeless. Homeless offenders cannot be easily monitored as an offender who can obtain gainful employment and suitable housing and basically rehabilitated back into society as most other crimes commited allow. Here in the U.S. there has been many researches conducted to prove and back up this science. Yet our politicians and government keep making the SO registry stricter and almost impossible to stay in full compliance at all times. Especially when it comes time for a sexual offender to travel domestically and even worse internationally. Granted some sex crimes deserve more scrutiny and evaluation. In my personal opinion if more psychiatry/therapy work and education was done for the victims of a sex crime or for society in general then most sex crimes wouldn’t ever take place. I myself was a victim of a sex crime at around 4-5 yrs old and became a sex offender at the age of 21 yrs old. I’m not saying it’s ok or an excuse for a victim to eventually commit a sex crime. I’m just saying that I believe if I had done some type of therapy when I was younger that my sex drive wouldn’t have gotten completely out of control. Yet, I also didn’t understand or know what was going on when I was molested. Which is why I brought up educating society in general. I was molested by a babysitter. Yet some children are molested by their biological parents, a close relative or a friend of the family. So if there is some way to educate children of what is the right and wrong ways of showing affection and/or touching etc. and who they can tell if it does happen then in my opinion most sex crimes against children will decrease with extensive therapy, following up into their teenage years. All the funding that goes into a public registry could be directed towards helping to fund this therapy/education process vs. an extensive public registry. That is just my opinon. Thank you for listening.
It’s Government of Dominica. Not the Dominican Government.
Otherwise, anything anyone wants to write is something they should feel free to write.
Roger that, thank you