The T&T Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) has be­gun work in es­tab­lish­ing a sex­u­al of­fend­ers' data­base. Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mervyn Richard­son, in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day evening, con­firmed plans of the data­base to the T&T Guardian. How­ev­er, Richard­son was care­ful to note that once es­tab­lished the data­base would be for the ben­e­fit of law en­force­ment per­son­nel and would not be ac­ces­si­ble to mem­bers of the pub­lic. "How would you like it if some­one could just search your name in such an on­line data­base?" DCP Richard­son asked. He said if such in­for­ma­tion was made pub­lic it would be an in­va­sion of pri­va­cy.

Richard­son re­vealed that the pro­posed na­tion­wide data­base would en­com­pass per­sons who were con­vict­ed of of­fences un­der the Sex­u­al Of­fence Act, in­clud­ing rape and in­de­cent and sex­u­al as­sault.

He said the plans were im­ple­ment­ed last year in ac­cor­dance with leg­is­la­tion sur­round­ing sex­u­al of­fend­ers.

Richard­son said work al­ready had be­gun to com­pile a list­ing of sex­u­al of­fend­ers but could not con­firm whether the list would be com­put­erised.

When asked if em­ploy­ers would be able to ac­cess the data­base to in­ves­ti­gate prospec­tive em­ploy­ees, DCP Richard­son re­it­er­at­ed the in­for­ma­tion would be strict­ly for po­lice use. He not­ed that em­ploy­ers would be able to gain in­for­ma­tion about an ap­pli­cant's crim­i­nal record through the al­ready es­tab­lished sys­tem of ob­tain­ing a po­lice cer­tifi­cate of good char­ac­ter. The reg­istry forms part of the 21st Cen­tu­ry Pol­i­cy Ini­tia­tive which was in­tro­duced by Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Dwayne Gibbs at the start of his two-year tenure. On May 3 last year, in re­sponse to a con­vict­ed sex of­fend­er who had gained em­ploy­ment at a pres­ti­gious all-girls sec­ondary school in Port-of-Spain, Min­is­ter of the Peo­ple and So­cial De­vel­op­ment Dr Glenn Ra­mad­hars­ingh an­nounced a sim­i­lar reg­istry. In mak­ing the an­nounce­ment, Dr Ra­mad­hars­ingh said the in­for­ma­tion would be avail­able to the pub­lic through an on­line reg­istry. This reg­istry was an­nounced to be part of the purview of the Chil­dren's Au­thor­i­ty, which forms part of Dr Ra­mad­hars­ingh's min­istry. Up to late yes­ter­day, the T&T Guardian could not con­firm the sta­tus of Ra­mad­hars­ingh's pro­pos­al. While speak­ing at the po­lice dai­ly press brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Sackville Street, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day pub­lic in­for­ma­tion of­fi­cer Sgt Wayne Mys­tar first an­nounced the plans for the reg­istry.

"Each di­vi­sion is man­dat­ed to have records of that and will make notes of sex­u­al crimes and preda­tors. We will have a record and it has been adopt­ed by the Po­lice Ser­vice," he said. Mys­tar ad­mit­ted to not hav­ing the full de­tails of the plan. He was quot­ed as say­ing: "A mem­ber of the pub­lic may have a con­cern and can go and ac­cess the in­for­ma­tion. Crit­i­cal in­for­ma­tion can be ex­changed." When con­tact­ed, late yes­ter­day evening, Sgt Mys­tar ad­mit­ted to not be­ing ful­ly ap­prised of the data­base and said fur­ther de­tails would be an­nounced at to­day's press brief­ing. He not­ed the TTPS record­ed a rise in the num­ber of re­ports of sex­u­al of­fens­es for the first three months of the year, an al­most 100 per cent in­crease. "Peo­ple are now com­ing for­ward with what was once a se­cret," he added. Mean­while, there have been mixed re­ac­tions to the reg­istry. Head of the Po­lice Wit­ness and Vic­tims Sup­port Unit, Mar­garet Samp­son-Brown said she ful­ly sup­port­ed a list of those con­vict­ed of se­ri­ous sex­u­al of­fences be­ing placed in po­lice sta­tions. How­ev­er, she said, a sex of­fend­ers' list in every po­lice sta­tion was good but care must be ex­er­cised in de­cid­ing who went on it, since it could stig­ma­tise some­one for life. Samp­son-Brown said the list of of­fend­ers must com­prise those whom the au­thor­i­ties have deemed to have no re­morse for their of­fences, have not con­formed to re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion pro­grammes and were not in­ter­est­ed in them.

She said she did not imag­ine that first-time sex of­fend­ers would be, or those who have been re­ha­bil­i­tat­ed, on that list. She said she sup­port­ed a list of se­ri­ous re­peat of­fend­ers, be­cause the po­lice need­ed to know every mem­ber of their com­mu­ni­ty in or­der to po­lice it ef­fec­tive­ly. Gre­go­ry Sloane-Seale, co-or­di­na­tor of the Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry's Cit­i­zen Se­cu­ri­ty Pro­gramme, who works in at-risk com­mu­ni­ties and has been in­volved in the re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion of ju­ve­nile delin­quents for years, was more cau­tious. He said: "I am not to­tal­ly against it but it is some­thing that needs to be done with a lot of care­ful thought. "A sex­u­al preda­tor is a crea­ture of habit and I think the po­lice need to know who in the com­mu­ni­ty has such ten­den­cies." Sloane-Seale said a sex of­fend­er dis­played a pat­tern of be­hav­iour that need­ed to be al­tered and could be treat­ed through ther­a­py. He said there were dif­fer­ent cat­e­gories of sex of­fences. For in­stance, he said, a 20-year-old who com­mit­ted statu­to­ry rape with a 15-year-old may be some­one who made a wrong choice. Sloane-Seale said a sex of­fend­ers' list should be de­cid­ed on a case-by-case ba­sis ac­cord­ing to cat­e­gories of of­fences.

(With re­port­ing by Derek Achong, Camille Clarke and Yvonne Ba­boolal)