Halsbury Chambers Partner Nerissa Greene has called for parental responsibility laws - citing the view that imposing stricter penalties on parents would reduce the ailments which presently exist in The Bahamas - and the creation of a sex offender's registry in The Bahamas.
As Greene pointed out at the recent Caribbean regional conference by the International Society of Family Law, in recent decades the number of persons under the age of 18 who commit serious criminal offenses has increased significantly, pushing the issue of parental accountability into the forefront.
"The age of parental accountability is one such area in need of imminent consideration. In The Bahamas, no parental responsibility has ever been legislated."
Greene noted that the general rule has been that a parent is not responsible for the acts of a child. Still, she queried whether parents ought not be held partially responsible for the act or actions of children.
"It could even be said, had the parent properly supervised the child, those crimes would not have happened," she said, referencing societies where the laws now hold parents or guardians financially responsible for the actions of children under the age of 18, particularly in cases where injury is caused or there is damage to property.
"This is also a vexing problem in our country and legislation should be considered to make parents legally accountable for the actions of children," Greene said.
Parental accountability laws would hold parents legally responsible for crimes committed by their children and operate on the premise that parents firstly have a legal duty to prevent their children from committing crime, and secondly that increasing parental accountability is an effective way to positively impact the juvenile crime rate.
"The objective is...to make parents accountable for their children and in turn reduce the rate of crimes or tortious acts by unsupervised and neglected children," explained Greene.
She added there is a need in The Bahamas for a sex offender's registry, which she said remains absent in practice. The term "sex offender" is a term used to define an individual found to be a sexually violent predator, one who has been convicted of the kidnapping, molestation, exploitation, seduction or solicitation of a minor.
Legislation governing sex offenders also makes provisions to protect former and potential victims by regulating the distance a registered sex offender may live from the dwelling place of a victim or from places where minors frequent such as schools or parks.
"The sex offenders registry ought to not only target local criminal offenders, but it also has to target the international criminal offenders who visit the shores of The Bahamas or intend to become residents of The Bahamas," Greene told the conference, noting that courts across the world are flooded with cases which detail the sexual abuse of children at the hands of strangers but more often by the hands of family members.
What she deemed deficiencies in local laws are amplified by the strides being made in other jurisdictions: the United States, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom have compiled such registries with a view to protecting the most vulnerable in their societies.
"But the question is what are we doing in The Bahamas about this? How have we protected the ones we claim to be the future leaders of tomorrow? What have we done to legislate the protection of the innocence of a child?" Greene questioned.
"It is widely accepted that our present family laws require reform and the legislation regarding the rights and protection of children appears to be lacking teeth, so to speak," she said.

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