State keeps tabs on criminal deportees, says Golding
Published:Sunday | March 24, 2013 | 12:00 AM
Tyrone Reid, Senior Staff Reporter
Justice Minister Senator Mark Golding has challenged claims that persons convicted of serious sexual crimes overseas and deported to Jamaica could be roaming the streets with nobody knowing where they are.
According to Golding, there are provisions in an existing legislation that allow the State to track persons deported for serious crimes including rape and other sexual offences.
Responding to a reported carried in The Sunday Gleaner that between 2008 and 2012 close to 250 persons were deported to Jamaica for committing serious sex crimes and there is no provision to allow the State to keep tabs on them; Golding said our sources were wrong.
The sources had claimed that a number of the persons deported for sexual offences have a laundry list of sexual charges on their rap sheet but would not be captured on the proposed sexual offenders registry.
But Golding declared that, "provision is already made in the Criminal Justice Administration Act (CJAA) for deportees,".
"Part 2A of the CJAA establishes a mechanism for the monitoring of deportees who have been convicted of serious crimes (including sexual offences) in a foreign state," added Golding.
He noted that under section 54B of the CJAA the minister of natio-nal security may designate as a restricted person any deportee who is convicted of a serious offence, or any person who elected to return to Jamaica in lieu of deportation and whose conduct and activities have been of such a nature that he may be reasonably regarded as constituting a threat to the public safety or public order of Jamaica.
He explained further that being a restricted person means that during a specified period, which is one year and which is renewable, the deported person is placed under the supervision of the police and is subject to several requirements, which includes giving notification of his place of residence.
Registration officer
The deported person can also be required to report to the registration officer in his parish at least once per week.
"If at any time he is absent or likely to be absent from his residence for a period exceeding seven days, he must supply to the registration officer of the parish in which he resides his current address and every subsequent change of address including his return to his residence," reads a section of the Act.
In addition, the legislation requires the deported person to immediately supply to the registration officer of the parish in which he resides, particulars of any circumstances affecting or likely to affect in any manner the accuracy of the particulars previously supplied by him".
Golding noted that there is no requirement in the Sexual Offences Act or the Sexual Offences (Registration of Sex Offenders) Regulations for the registration of a deportee who has been convicted outside of Jamaica of a sexual offence, because the establishment of the sex offender registry is aimed at persons convicted of a specified sexual offence in Jamaica.
"Therefore, unless a deportee is convicted of a specified sexual offence in Jamaica, the obligations of a sex offender as stated would not apply," said Golding.
He argued that the constraints outlined in the CJAA should be more than sufficient to track deported offenders as these are more rigorous than those prescribed in the Sexual Offences Act and regulations.
"The obligations under Part 2A of the CJAA are, therefore, in the main, more stringent than that which applies to a sex offender under the monitoring regime. A sex offender, unless he changes his address or leaves the island is only required to report once per year, while the restricted person is required to report weekly," Golding said.