You don't know how it warms my heart to hear that the Centre for the Investigation of Sexual Offences and Child Abuse, CISOCA, plans to release the names of some of Jamaica's most influential people who are closet predators and whose main victims are young girls, and, I daresay, young boys.

For too long, some of these people have been getting away with murder. If these offenders are involved in crimes, the police withhold their names, but if some regular Joe like me gets caught up, our names are splashed across the headlines.

This is what allows these offenders leeway to become repeat offenders - they know no one will ever hear about it.

I remember back when I was a rookie court reporter, an uptown youth was charged with stealing a car.While in court, I remember seeing a woman looking at me continuously as I was taking my notes.

After the morning session had adjourned, the woman I had seen looking at me asked who I was, and I told her. She then asked what it would take for me to keep her son's name out of the paper. I politely declined her offer and made sure that her son's story was atop my story list for the day. She should have told him to steer clear of breaking the law.

Similarly, many of these sexual predators use their cheque books and their 'power' to ensure that their misdeeds are kept private so that they can continue living out their salacious desires without impediment. It has to stop!

My only problem is why it took the police so long to come to this decision. The names of these people should have been released a long time ago. The other thing now is to see whether the police will act on their decision. I would urge them not to delay considering how at risk our children are in this country. Jamaica's children are no longer protected from the bullets of the gunmen or the sexual perversions of a nation conflicted by sexuality. We somehow accept certain 'norms', which, when you step back and look at it, are not norms.

sick 'norm'

The habit, for example, of men trying to rid themselves of sexually transmitted diseases by sleeping with virgins, is one such sick 'norm' which we tend to conveniently overlook. That is not only dunce behaviour, it is downright perverted.

Then there are those grey-tone men who prey on the little 12-and 13-year-old girls (and boys) while keeping their hapless mothers quiet with financial inducements. The police should start locking up some of these mothers as well. There are some women who, I am convinced, should never be mothers, because mothers are supposed to protect their kids, not be their pimps.

Now, as we await the first of those names to be released, I can imagine how nervous these predators have become. They will start calling in favours and loosening up their purse strings once again. My only hope is that the police don't fall prey to the whims and fancies of these predators. It's about time they started to pay in the right way for their sick behaviour.

'... many of these sexual predators use their cheque books and their 'power' to ensure that their misdeeds are kept private so that they can continue living out their salacious desires without impediment.'