During an exclusive interview with the Bahama Journal, Minister Butler-Turner said she has been lobbying for a national sexual offenders registry ever since she was elected to office.
"I wanted to implement that when I was made a minister of state for social services because I thought that it certainly would have put a lot of Bahamians at ease knowing that officials would be able to track those [sexual offenders]," she said.
"But you would be aware that the government has also bought forward an initiative in terms of the bracelets for tracking people on bail and that is something we are moving towards. And I think that we might very well accomplish tracking sexual offenders through the very same mechanism without creating the registry even though we have not discussed it."
The government passed legislation to permit the electronic monitoring of offenders last November.
Minister Butler-Turner said she believes a monitoring system for sexual offenders would be useful.
"I think this is something that is useful to national security because many of these people have pathological disorders even if they have in fact served time in a penal institution and many times it is very difficult to rehabilitate them," she said.
"In my mind, I’m thinking these bracelets may be just as effective, but I think this is something the government would have to explore."
She acknowledged that the government has passed a compendium of protection laws, including the Child Protection Act and the Domestic Violence Act.
"We may find that the government does not need to create another bureaucracy," Minister Butler-Turner said.
A week ago, two men accused of having unlawful sex with minors both got bail in separate cases brought before the Magistrate’s Court.
One was a police officer, who was granted $20,000 bail after he was accused of having sex with his two 14-year-old daughters and the other was a 39-year-old security officer at the North Eleuthera High School who allegedly had sex with seven young girls.
Police allege that Adrian Albert White of Airport Road, North Eleuthera indecently assaulted the girls, who range in age from 14 to 17-years-old between September 2008 and May 2009.
White was granted $25,000 bail with two sureties and is expected to return to court on September 1.
Minister Butler-Turner said while the courts have the right to grant bail, she believes that stricter measures must be taken to protect children.
"Bail is something that the government can’t say to the judges ‘you cannot do that.’ But from my prospective, in terms of protecting our children, I think all of these culprits until they are proven innocent should not out on bail," she admitted.
"When it comes to the rights of our children, I want to get the strictest guidelines that we can get in terms of ensuring that they are protected."
The National Child Protection Council recently reported that in 2008 there were 266 cases of child neglect, 177 cases of physical child abuse, 134 cases of sexual abuse and 25 cases of incest in New Providence.
On the Family Islands, there were 145 cases of neglect, sexual and physical abuse.
