From MeganOCOs Law to JessicaOCOs Law, almost every state in the nation has passed some law to punish sex offenders. This popular tough-on-crime legislation is often written after highly-publicized cases have made the gruesome rounds through the media, and usually features harsh sentences, lifetime GPS monitoring, a dramatic expansion of the civil commitment procedures, and severe restrictions on where released sex offenders may live. In Sex Fiends, Perverts, and Pedophiles, Chrysanthi Leon argues that, while the singular notion of the sexual boogeyman has been used to justify these harsh policies, not all sex offenders are the same and such OCyone size fits allOCO policies can unfairly punish other offenders of lesser crimes, needlessly targeting, sometimes ostracizing, citizens from their own communities. While many recognize that prison is not the right tool for every crime problem, Leon compellingly argues that the U.S. maintains a one-size-fits-all approach to sexual offending which is undermining public safety. Leon explains how weOCOve reached this pointOCowith a large incarcerated sex offender population, many of whom will be released in the coming years with multiple barriers to their success in the community, and without much expertise to guide them or to guide those who are charged to help them. Leon argues that we cannot blame the public, nor even the politicians, except indirectly. Instead, we might blame the institutions we charge with making placement decisions and with the expertsOCoboth those who have chosen to work in the field and those who have caused its marginalization. Ultimately, Leon shows that when policies intended for the worst offenders take over, all of us suffer."

From sex fiend laws to Jessica's Law, every state regularly passes popular tough-on-crime legislation, often written after highly-publicized cases have made the gruesome rounds through the media. Chrysanthi Leon shows that, while the singular notion of the sexual bogeyman has been used to justify these harsh policies, not all sex offenders are the same and such 'one size fits all' policies are well-intentioned but badly implemented. Leon argues for much-needed changes to the criminal justice system, ultimately showing that when policies intended for the worst offenders take over, all of us suffer.

This book surveys the history, current status, and critical issues regarding the various mechanisms designed to control sex offenders. It shows that the social problem of sex offending is not apparently resolvable by any of the means currently employed. A large array of procedures are used in the attempt to control the difficult population of sex offenders, including: imprisonment, institutional and community treatment, community monitoring by probation and parole, electronic monitoring, registration as a sex offender, community notification of an offender’s status, strict limits on behavioral movement in the community, and residence restrictions. However, these constraints on behavior are almost completely the result of public outrage regarding sensational sex crimes, overreaction of media coverage that produce inaccurate statements of potential community risk, and the efforts of the legal profession and politicians to quell this anger and foreboding by enacting legislation that supposedly confronts the risk. This book demonstrates that we have constructed a massive edifice of community control that is socially and politically driven and which has largely failed to contain sex crime.

The Oxford Handbook on Sex Offenses and Sex Offenders provides comprehensive, even-handed analysis of the myriad of topics related to sex offenses, including pornography, sex trafficking, criminal justice responses, and the role of social media in sex crimes. Extending beyond the existing scholarly research on the topic, this volume teases out the key debates, controversies, and challenges involved in addressing sex crimes.

Circles of Support and Accountability is a voluntary initiative that assists people with convictions for sexual offences to resettle in the community. People leaving prison with such convictions often have difficulties in resettling. They carry the burden of the conviction itself, which may be both stigmatising and isolating, and they are the subject of sex offender register requirements, parole and other supervisory conditions. Circles of Support and Accountability in the UK started over ten years ago and have slowly spread across the country. They work closely with the police and probation services but rely entirely on volunteers prepared to give up their time to work with people often otherwise shunned by communities. Circles offer support to the person concerned but also hold them accountable for their future behaviour. They aim to ensure there are ‘no more victims’. This book is based on original research and provides a close-up picture of how these Circles of Support and Accountability work in practice. It brings together for the first time the voices of all the participants, from the offenders and the volunteers through to the Coordinators who link the volunteers to the professionals in the form of the police and probation services. The research was commissioned by Circles UK and funded by the Wates Foundation and the University of Leeds, School of Law.

There are many varieties of procedures to assess criminal and sex offenders that have emerged throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. This book is an attempt to bridge that gap, to provide some historical background of sex offender assessment from 1830 to the present.

Sex, Sexuality, Law, and (In)Justice covers a wide range of legal issues associated with sexuality, gender, reproduction, and identity. These are critical and sensitive issues that law enforcement and other criminal justice professionals need to understand. The book synthesizes the literature across a wide breadth of perspectives, exposing students to law, psychology, criminal justice, sociology, philosophy, history, and, where relevant, biology, to critically examine the social control of sex, gender, and sexuality across history. Specific federal and state case law and statutes are integrated throughout the book, but the text moves beyond the intersection between law and sexuality to focus just as much on social science as it does on law. This book will be useful in teaching courses in a range of disciplines—especially criminology and criminal justice, history, political science, sociology, women and gender studies, and law.

The Third Edition of Violence: The Enduring Problem offers an interdisciplinary and reader-friendly exploration of the patterns and correlations of individual and collective violent acts using the most contemporary research, theories, and cases. Responding to the fear of pervasive violence in the world, authors Alex Alvarez and Ronet Bachman address the various legislative, social, and political efforts to curb violent behavior. They expertly incorporate a wide range of the most current cases to help readers interpret the nature and dynamics of a variety of different, yet connected, forms of violence. While most texts of this type simply cover individual acts of violence, this book offers readers a broader perspective, covering more collective violence activities such as terrorism, mob violence, and genocide.

Convicted sex offenders released from custody at the end of their criminal sentences pose a risk for re-offense. In many US states, Sexually Violent Predator (SVP) laws have been enacted that allow for the post-prison preventive detention of high risk sex offenders. SVP laws require the courts to make dispositions that protect the public from harm while at the same time respecting the civil rights of the offender. This book describes these SVP laws, their constitutionality, and aspects of their operation. Courts hear expert risk testimony based heavily on the results of actuarial risk assessment. Problems associated with this testimony include the lack of a theory of recidivism risk, bias due to human decision-making, and the insularity of scholarship and practice along developmental lines. The authors propose changes in legal standards, as well as a unified developmental model that treats sexual violence as an "evolving" condition, with roots traceable to childhood and paths that extend into adolescence and adulthood.

This work is an exploratory examination of the experiences, motivations, and coping mechanisms of women who are involved in intimate relationships with registered sexual offenders. The study focuses both on women who were involved with an offender prior to the commission of his offense and who stayed with him post-conviction, and on women who became involved with a registered offender after his sex offense conviction. Like the offender himself, these women face a variety of challenges in responding to treatment of them by friends, family, the community, and the criminal justice system. Utilizing the results of intensive interviews, this work provides a unique look at the women who are one of the few sources of support for registered sexual offenders and assesses the effectiveness and wide-ranging implications of community notification and registration laws on public safety, policy, and practice. This work offers alternative approaches based on evidence and case studies and considers the significance of familial contact in buffering sexual recidivism. These women are the heretofore unstudied victims of sexual offending legislation. This book is essential reading for those in sociology, criminology, psychology, and social work. For undergraduate or graduate students, practitioners, researchers, or policy makers, this thought-provoking book will shed light on how to optimize the reintegration of sex offenders. It assesses the effectiveness and wide-ranging implications of sex offender legislation on public safety, policy, and practice and considers alternative approaches to reduce sexual violence.