Local children’s advocate Betty Ann Blaine is demanding the right for the general public to have access to the sex offenders registry. This as she says known pedophiles and sexual predators can be better guarded against when and if they are known.
Currently, only a select few have access to the sex offenders registry, among them the police. Blaine says this is counterproductive in a society where predators preying on the nation’s children managed to abduct two girls hours apart in the same community. She is demanding the public needs to know who these offenders are.
She noted that if one is living in a community living with young children, and someone moves in next door who is a convicted pedophile it is important that one is informed, so they can properly protect their children.
Blaine says the experts say pedophilia is incurable, hence the need to do more to protect the children. She says the condition of repeat offending in the U.S was the basis on which the sex registry was made public there. Noting that these offenders would move into new communities and repeat the offence and adds that the public sex offenders registry could aid in avoiding this in Jamaica.
More in this CVM Live story from Neika Lewis: