Penology: Sex Offenders
- Created by: gracehamilton01
- Created on: 17-05-19 14:18
View mindmap
- Sex Offenders in the Community
- Legal Context
- Sex Offenders Act (2003)
- includes the offences of: ****, sexual assault, assault by penetration etc.
- s.74: CONSENT: 'a person consents if s/he agrees by choice and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice
- over 80, 000 supervised sex offenders in 2017/18
- Sarah's Law
- Child Sex Offender Disclosure Scheme
- started in 2008: available in all 43 forces
- in brief: allows anyone to ask the police if a person with contact with their child has a sex offences records
- in the interest of protecting children
- presumption to disclose will only happen in cases where a person has definite convictions
- police aim to complete enquiries in 45 days
- How does it protect children?
- 1. police will only disclose information if it is lawful and protects a child
- 2. doesn't advocate style of Megan's Law which could encourage offenders to go missing, putting the child at further risk
- 3. works together with existing procedures to raise child protection concerns (MAPPA, children's services, Working Together to Safeguard Children)
- 4. MAPPA only allowed to disclose information if it protects a child from serious harm: child at the heart of everything
- 5. disclosures can only be made to a parent/carer/ guardian who is in a dominant position to use information to safeguard a child
- Evaluation: Sarah's Law as 'bad'
- 1. encourages individuals to take responsibility for their own children
- 2. no suspicion is needed to request information: against the liberties of the offender/not offender focussed?
- 3. POLICE: may no have had experience of managing sexual offender cases/child enquiries
- potential for officers not to take cases seriously, look at specific signs: leads to inconsistency/non-sensitive
- 4. applicants felt ill-equipped with information of offender - ambiguous and anxious feelings
- KEMSHALL ET AL, 2012: 159 responses in the study of disclosure schemes
- broad level: resonates with victim studies: victims want a voice to be heard, but so not necessarily want to take more active responsibility: fills the need/gap
- WEMMER AND CYR, 2006
- Home Office Evaluation: 2007:
- 1. police and probation services believed it offered extensive route for public to make enquiries
- 2. failure to target vulnerable families
- these types of people may not be able to access the scheme by contacting the police
- need to be more extensive: utilising teachings to reach to this group of people
- 3. scheme needs to be more public
- pilots showed a need for more marketing and appropriate police briefings
- OVERALL: serves to disappoint, both at targeting 'risk' populations and engaging the public
- Problems with knowing disclosure/register information
- 1. compliance rate may fall if people know info: 97% in UK and 50% in USA
- 2. drive in underground peados; FITCH, 2006; MACGUIRE AND KEMSHALL, 2004
- 3. rise in vigilante groups: most offenders dear being sentenced in the community due to vigilantism; WOOD AND KEMSHALL, 2007
- 4. may encourage networking with other sex offenders
- 5. relatively meaningless, besides Clare's Law partner info sharing
- 6. offenders still placed on list/register, despite undergoing treatment/rehab scheme - damaging for future reputation?
- 7. places responsibility of community to protect themselves: shift from police to public
- Megan's Law
- Megan Kanka, aged 7
- ****d and murdered by a known child molester
- 1996: new legislation enabling public to access info on sex offenders in the community
- prohibited to use information to harass or commit any crime against an offender
- one of the most rapid transformation in US federal and state law; PAWSON, 2002
- LEVENSON AND OTTER, 2005:
- study of 183 male sex offender in Florida and how Megan's Law impacted them
- provided motivation to prevent reoffending
- increased honesty with family and friends
- 1/3 participants experienced loss of job/hoome
- vast majority experienced stress, isolation, fear, shame and loss of relationships
- more than 1/2 respondents said information which was posed about them online was FALSE
- Evaluation
- 1. one of the most potent weapons of anti-**** measures: austere method of monitoring and controlling offenders; CORRIGAN, 2006
- 2. consistent with reproaches of the repressive law
- 1. threat/fear of reprisal may promote an offender to reoffend and stay out of the community
- 2. the law compromises the sex offender ability to reintegrate safely; FREEMAN-LONGO, 2001
- 3. sex offender failed to reduce forcible ****; ACKERMAN ET AL, 2012
- 4. law can isolate an offender: concerns of collateral damage, vigilantism, bracketing all offenders to 1 category, dismissal consequences for juvenile offender; ACKERMAN ET AL, 2013
- 5. rehabilitative approach is limited: few applications and adoptions of COSA compared to UK and Canada
- 6. FEMINIST critique: stresses sexual offences are committed by a handful of strangers: ignores wider scope of the problem; CORRIGAN, 2006
- 7. US style of community notification has not found a reduction in sexual offences; FITCH, 2006
- Legal Context
Comments
No comments have yet been made