Sexual Offences Registry to open to public by year end – Greene

Despite being launched in 2018, the Sexual Offenses Registry will not be open to the public until this year-end.
This was recently explained by Director of Child Care and Protection Agency (CCPA), Ann Greene.
According to her, the necessary information still has to be uploaded to the website.
“The registry will not be in effect until year-end. It’s up, but we have to input data,” she explained. Greene added that the Child Care Agency will now be required to do an extensive amount of research, to ensure that cases were not appealed among other due diligence checks.
“It’s a legal thing. If a man appeals his sexual offense and all of that, we have to go through and see, (so) it’s not just to put up a name. It’s a legal process for including a name, so it’s not going to be open to people. We are hoping that it should be by year-end, but it’s a lot of work, so we are working to get it right,” Greene said.
Back in October last year a senior officer reported that the much-anticipated Child Abuse and Sexual Offenses Registries which were launched back in September 2018 were being set up and tested to ensure all aspects are intact.
Greene pointed out during a previous interview that the names of perpetrators of sexual abuse will be publicised and exposed to the public, who will be able to access the requisite information on the internet.
“People were clamouring for that, and so I gave a commitment to launch the Child Abuse Registry. It is really to put online the persons who would have committed offences against children. If anybody wants to employ anybody, you could run the Child Abuse Registry,” she had explained.
Greene did not reveal the cost of the programme, but only said it was budgeted for and is a rather technical database.
The perpetrators’ pictures, she said, will also likely be available through the Registry, since the department is cognisant of the fact that people have the same names.
It was on this note that the Director reiterated the importance of such a database in combating child abuse nationally.