Recommendations To Deal With Sex Offenders
“All convicted sexual offenders should be required to participate in a mandatory treatment program prior to their release,” was one of the recommendations contained in the Parliamentary Joint Select Committee Sex Offender Register report.
“An area that garnered lots of questions and concerns from the JSC was the treatment of sexual offenders while they are incarcerated,” the report said.
“Certain members of the JSC were shocked to learn that treatment for a convicted sexual offender is optional while they are incarcerated. This means that a convicted sexual offender can be and in some cases are released from prison with no treatment at all.”
In making recommendations for the management of sexual offenders, the JSC said, “All convicted sexual offenders should be required to participate in a mandatory treatment program prior to their release from the correctional facility. Treatment should not be optional.
“There should be consequences for those offenders who refuse treatment while incarcerated; the possibility of extended prison sentences should be considered.”
The JSC noted that there is “no legal framework for sexual offenders who commit offences overseas to be added” to a Bermuda registry, and recommended that “Bermudian residents who were convicted overseas should be added to the Bermuda Register.”
The report also said, “Several witnesses spoke on the need to have sexual offenders redefined in categories according to High Risk/Dangerous, Medium Risk and Low Risk Sexual Offenders.
“This categorization of offenders would determine ongoing monitoring and control of the various offenders upon release. This was further explained in terms of a seventeen-year-old boy/girl in a relationship with a fifteen-year-old boy/girl and the oldest person was charged and tried through the courts.
“In accordance with our laws this would be considered a sexual offence and the convicted offender could well end up on a sexual offenders’ register, thus placing a young person on a register.”
The report said that unfortunately “we have monsters amongst us,” and noted statistics on child sexual abuse, with 173 reported cases in 2014, and 126 in 2013.
As part of the overall findings, the JSC said they support a “tiered sexual offenders registry with mandated framework to notify the public of the release of a high risk dangerous offender only.”
The 22-page report, which was recently tabled in the House of Assembly, covers many other aspects including education, awareness, and preventative measures, and can be read below.
The JSC Child Protection/Sex Offender Register Report follows below [PDF here]:
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All excellent ideas with a view to both rehabilitation so these individuals can go on to contribute to society whilst society also benefits from greater protection. What does concern me is that undoubtedly the politically correct, busy body brigade will as always jump in and this will be used as tool for attacking individual freedoms and privacy. Government needs to legislate this aspect too
Castration before release.
What about those offenders who are female?
I agree, if they punish all criminals to equal extent, thieves lose hands and feet, drug dealers and users will never be able to use or have any medicine, drunk drivers will never have a car or any alcohol again, reckless drivers and those caught speeding will lose drivers licenses forever, arsonists can never be allowed anything that may cause a flame, animal abusers can not be around any animals, and you will be castrated first to see if it really works. Can we do it that way?
Hopefully regular members of the public will have access to help, prevention is better than cure.
Castration is not going to fix anything. The efficacy of treatment is suspect. More so when it is forced. I think my solution would violate the rules of posting here…
A registry would be helpful though.
What does this even mean…They need to research and educate themselves before passing such useless laws which in many places like the USA they do not protect only isolate and destroy citizens. Citizens which are families that end up bearing most of the burden because of these laws. Families such as mothers, fathers, grandparents, children even grandchildren who have not committed any crime but are punished just for supporting a loved one. As a mother who understand just how many non-violent sex offenses there are that will punish and place a person on a registry I fear that my child may do something stupid and end up on the registry more than I ever worried about them becoming a victim. Go slowly or it may be your loved one next listed on a registry.