The Tribune

By LYNAIRE MUNNINGS

Tribune Staff Reporter

lmunnings@tribunemedia.net

SOCIAL Services Minister Barbara Cartwright has backed restricted access to the Sexual Offenders Register, saying key government agencies and institutions should be able to identify convicted sex offenders while keeping the register closed to the general public.

Mrs Cartwright’s comments came after Crisis Centre Director Sandra Dean-Patterson warned against making the register public, arguing that broad access in a small country like The Bahamas could encourage vigilantism, undermine offender monitoring and fail to make children safer.

Mrs Cartwright said she agreed the register should not be open to the public, but said certain ministries and institutions should have access to the information to help protect vulnerable people.

"I believe that certain ministries or persons should have access to the register, even though we're in a small society,” she said. “I think we should know, because there are people out there who just want to harm persons, that's their thing, they think about it every day, it's a constant thing for them, that's how they live.

"So we need to know who they are, some other persons need to know, so sort of we could rely on, relate to, or call another institution and say, is this person on the sex register?

"Sometimes you have the conviction in the newspaper, and so you know there's persons who we have, whenever they get out of jail, we need to know where they are for our own safety, because sometimes persons never stop. They continue, they may have gone in jail, they didn't have the proper training or that they need, and so they come out and they do, they commit the same crime."

Mrs Cartwright added: "I don't think it should be a public record, but I think that certain institutions should be made aware of who those persons are."

Last week, Ms Dean-Patterson said the Crisis Centre had long advocated for the register because of the growing number of children being sexually abused and exploited. However, she said access should remain limited to agencies responsible for protecting children and supervising offenders after their release, including the police, the Department of Social Services and the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services.

She warned that making the register public could encourage vigilantism and create unintended consequences, including housing restrictions that make it harder to monitor offenders effectively.

Ms Dean-Patterson said responsibility for monitoring offenders and protecting children should remain with the agencies tasked with that work after offenders leave prison. She also acknowledged that such a system depends on public confidence in the authorities responsible for enforcing it.

The Sexual Offenders 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 register with the installation of a kiosk at Wulff Road Police Station. Then National Security Minister Wayne Munroe said offenders sentenced after July 24, 2019, must register within 72 hours of their release from prison, report any change of address and notify authorities before travelling for more than seven days.

Mr Munroe also cautioned against using information on registered offenders for retaliation, warning that vigilantism in other jurisdictions had, in some cases, resulted in offenders being removed from registries by the courts, making them harder for authorities to monitor.