JFJ warned against ‘enabling, empowering predators’

Criminologist Dr Jason McKay is questioning Jamaicans for Justice’s (JFJ) close-in-age exemption defence, as it relates to decriminalising consensual sex among minors, a proposal outlined in the human-rights group’s latest report, ‘Civil Society Review of the Diversion and Alternative Measures for Children in Conflict with the Law in Jamaica’.

Citing the Child Diversion Programme as resources being “misallocated, burdening the police, overwhelming courts and causing children to miss school when a child is brought before the courts, rather than dealing with those instances through comprehensive sexual education”, JFJ, in its report, has urged lawmakers to introduce ‘a statutory defence where no offence occurs if partners are less than two years apart in age [both under 16]’.

However, the rights group’s proposal of a further defence, “available for differences up to five years if: the activity is consensual, there is no position of authority or dependency, and the younger party is at least 12 to 14 years old [to balance protection]”, has raised eyebrows, including those of McKay and Children’s Advocate Diahann Gordon-Harrison.

Referring to his October 20 Gleaner article, in which he had warned against any consideration to expunge sex crimes, McKay noted the rights group’s director’s response that “an 18-year-old with a 15-year-old could be convicted of having sexual intercourse with a minor and would not benefit from expungement, despite posing no future risk”.

“I see where JFJ is now proposing a close-in-age defence, which would legalise a 14-year-old, a minor, having sex with a 19-year-old, who is legally an adult by more than a year,” McKay pointed out.

“How can JFJ, on one hand, say a blanket approach to sexual-offences expungement risks injustice, citing two 15-year-olds, suddenly wanting to move the goalpost to a 19-year-old adult being with a minor?

“Being a policeman on the ground in one of the most expansive police territories in the country, I humbly submit that Ms Jackson is broadbrushing a serious issue.

“Does Ms Jackson understand the realities on the ground in some communities when the 19-year-old, who could be a gunman, sends for your 14- or 15-year-old?” McKay asked. Pointing out that Jamaica’s age of consent is in line with most countries, McKay noted that in some American states, it varies from 16 to 18.

CREATING MENTAL SCARS

“When you take a case-by-case approach, especially any close-in-age ratio, you would be opening a floodgate, enabling and empowering predators, causing some children to live with mental scars for life, especially the most vulnerable,” he said.

Gordon-Harrison said she supported JFJ’s call to decriminalise consensual sex between minors, a recommendation she herself had made to Parliament more than seven years ago.

She was however taken aback at the close-in-age exemption, which would allow adults to be with minors, being cited as a “further defence” by the rights group.

“The recommendation being made by JFJ echoes, in part, a very dated recommendation I, myself, had made to the House of Parliament when reviewing the Child Care and Protection Act and Sexual Offences Act years ago,” said Gordon-Harrison.

“However, my proposal was that they both have to be minors, not if it crosses that line. My close-in-age exception would be triggered were it two minors, not an adult and minor,” the children’s advocate emphasised.

Further explaining her then submission, Gordon-Harrison said she proposed the minors would have to be “very close in age”.

“I had proposed that, where two youngsters are very close in age, and there was no force, coercion, violence, or fraud, and they consider themselves to be in a mutually consensual relationship, that, if there was any sexual connection, in these very narrow circumstances, then that was not a matter for the courts.

“My close-in-age exemption, therefore, would remove such matters from the purview of the police and the courts, placing the two youngsters on a path for counselling and advice, the preference for abstinence, to discontinue sexual engagement and give them information regarding the risks that come with early sexual activity,” Gordon-Harrison added, pointing out that she had “opened the floor for input from Parliament as to what age band would qualify for close-in-age exemption and the rationale for justification.

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