By Heppilena Ferguson
Convicted paedophiles will now be subject to police supervision immediately after their prison terms expire and for the remainder of their lives, following the passage of the Prevention of Crimes (Amendment) bill in the National Assembly last evening.
Though the opposition was up in arms about the capacity of the Guyana Police Force to effectively enforce the piece of legislation, the consensus was mostly in support of supervision for paedophiles but with objections on supervision for first-time offenders for any indictable offence.
However, the opposition’s concerns which ranged from the ability of such a system to frustrate and harass persons willing to change their lives to the seeming drifting towards a police state were attacked by Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee as having no relevance to the bill and all “aimed at making political mileage.”
Rohee noted that the changes were particularly necessary in view of the fact that such offences affecting children have become very prevalent not only in Guyana but also in other parts of the world . To this end he insisted that it was incumbent upon the administration to address such matters in the way the bill has.
Prior to the amendment, Section 3 of the Act provided for persons who had been convicted of certain crimes defined in the act to be subject to police supervision only if the court having cognizance of the indictment, directed the person to be subjected to police supervision. However as the Act now stands it makes supervision by the police mandatory for three years in respect of persons who have completed prison terms for armed robbery, domestic violence, hijacking, offences involving the use of firearms or explosives and piracy. Police supervision for life on the other hand will go for persons convicted of molestation, rape, sexual exploitation, pornography, prostitution, incest and kidnapping.
Any person convicted on indictment of a crime, in addition to the punishment awarded, shall be subject to police supervision for one year if he has no previous conviction, two years if he has one previous conviction and for a period of three years if he has more previous convictions than one for any crime.
Helping crime
Accusing the government of putting the “proverbial foot in its mouth”, People’s National Congress Reform-One Guyana (PNCR-1G) MP Deborah Backer questioned how the new move by government to make supervision mandatory would contribute to the crime fight.
She noted where for instance a person was charged with an indictable offence, serves his time in prison and was then subject to supervision but wanted to move to another part of the country to resume his/her life.
The unavailability of a police station or outpost in that area may pose a limitation to that individual.
“Where is the force’s capacity to supervise?” she queried. She added that were someone interested in leading a new, positive life, the supervision will lead to frustration and a sense of “where is this going to end for me”.
“I don’t feel that the legislation is well thought out and it basically amounts to harassment of citizens who have already served sentence. You cannot jail away crime, put people in jail and then monitoring them after they come out,” she argued.
Backer added that this power which the government was seeking to confer upon the police should be left to the court, insisting that the amendment was “pushing aside” the court and imposing state restrictions.
On the opposition side too, Alliance For Change leader Raphael Trotman said his party supported the bill on the condition that it sees what is being put in place to ensure that it will be properly enforced. Trotman also questioned the force’s capacity to effectively supervise offenders and the mechanisms being put in place.
He said he wanted to be assured that the minister was not just bringing the bill to the house, but that there was going to be tangible evidence of compliance and enforcement.
“Otherwise the bill is tantamount to invisible bracelets placed around the wrists of offenders to ensure that they remain in certain areas,” he said. He noted too that he was also concerned that the act gave the minister power to amend the schedule at any time he sees fit, by deleting an offence from, or including an offence.
Preventing
re-offenders
Human Services Minister Priya Manickchand brought home the point that the legislation was also aiming at preventing and reducing the amount of re-offenders. However she acknowledged that that while its passage would not mean that no child will ever again be molested or the number of rape cases will decrease, it was surely a move in the right direction.
She admitted too that the amendment brought to bear the need for collaboration between probation services, the prisons and the police to determine the persons who mostly had the tendency to re-offend and also to determine the persons that shall be subjects of supervision.
She was confident that the amendments reflected what Guyana wants and to this end pointed to results of her consultations on the Stamp It Out campaign, which are to be officially released in another two weeks.
Among some of those recommendations, Manickchand said were that the faces of rapists be put on billboards throughout the country so that sex offenders would be known. According to her people also called for the Director of Public Prosecutions to appeal verdicts in such cases. She said too that there were recommendations especially from communities such as Moruca, Moraikobai and Port Kaituma for the movements of such persons to be restricted since in many cases many of them left the coastland and went to those areas and committed the same offences.
Rohee refuted the opposition’s arguments about leaving the issue to the discretion of the courts noting that his research has shown that there is no record of the use of that section by the court.
“It is within their power to do so and they never did it and now we are seeking to make it mandatory since we are not talking about any group of men walking inn the park,” he said.
He insisted that the government knew fully well that it could not jail crime but “we will jail away the criminals… I submit that the country needs tough anti –crime laws and it will have such laws”.
He assured the house that mechanisms would be put in place for full enforcement of the legislation. On the opposition’s claim of an attempt to emasculate the courts, Rohee described the courts in the past as “a toothless poodle to the executive.” He insisted that the wider consideration was protecting the citizens of the republic and pointed out that the current crime situation called for measures of this type.
