A new component of Trinidad’s National Sex Offenders registry went into effect on January 31, 2020. The registry can now be made public.
Several countries have registries, but only the United States’ was publicly available. Now, if the Court orders, someone on the Trinidad registry will be publicized online too.
At least the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs recognizes the move is punishment. In a statement they said, “As of January 31st 2020, perpetrators of sexual crimes will face the full brunt of novel laws aimed at deterring, punishing and shaming rapists, paedophiles and those others with a propensity to commit sexual crimes.”
Three things stick out to me. First The minister said “If the court decides” does that mean the court has a choice whether or not to add someone to the public registry or not because here the judge has no choice at all. Second Is there registry retroactive like ours. Lastly Trinidad being a relatively small country every two people know or are related to a 3rd person so do they realize or care they are shaming a offender yes but they are also putting him/her and their families in danger of physical harm. I guess looking like your doing something is better than actually doing something
What makes this different from the US is that they explicitly acknowledge punishment and shaming as its goals.
In the US, under our constitution, such an acknowledgement would have caused our registry to have been stuck down by the courts years ago.
If punishment and shaming are things we actually want, then public registries begin to make sense.
“At least the Ministry of the Attorney General and Legal Affairs recognizes the move is punishment.”
Absolutely it is. It seems ridiculous to me that so many Americans are spoon fed the whole “safety” lie instead of seeing it for what it actually is. Punishment pure and simple. Punishment for registrants, punishment for families, and punishment for anyone who tries to help someone on the registry reintegrate into society/ whether it be a landlord or employer who tries to see past someone’s past.
I highly doubt they will gracefully enforce it, Trinidad is pretty laxed unless you really get into trouble.
There is no doubt in me mind the passage of this law is a way in Trinidad political mind to get in better favor with the US. There currently working out a deal with the US to procure oil rights that are currently owned by them and Venezuela so they can drill separately from them. They are in dire need of the natural gas from the area. They desperately need the resources but can’t get them because of sanctions on Venezuela.
Its all a political move in order to assure good relations with the US.
Here again the low hanging fruit gets thrown under the bus. No common sense here. Just political scrambling.