Protecting Society from Sexually Dangerous Offenders

Protecting Society from Sexually Dangerous Offenders PDF Author: John Q. La Fond
Publisher: Amer Psychological Assn
ISBN: 9781557989734
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
In Protecting Society From Sexually Dangerous Offenders, legal and mental health experts explore the ramifications of the controversial sexual predator commitment laws, registration and community notification laws, and chemical castration laws that have come into existence in the past dozen years. The increasing number of sex crimes, especially those committed by released sex offenders against young victims, has struck a public nerve. Understandably, citizens are angry, vengeful, and fearful, and they demand both retribution and harsh measures to prevent these kinds of crimes from recurring. These intense public demands for retaliation and protection have shaped recent law and public policy, resulting in involuntary commitment programs, notification laws, and chemical castration laws for sex offenders in many states. These new legal strategies raise serious constitutional questions regarding the rights of those who have served their punishment. Perhaps more important is the question of whether these programs are actually effective in preventing sexual recidivism. In this volume, contributing authors discuss the issues surrounding these new legal strategies and the alternatives to such programs. They examine the wisdom and constitutionality of post-incarceration commitment and the difficulty of determining who is most likely to offend again. Contributors propose alternatives to involuntary commitment, including community containment and programs for treating sexually abused children so as to reduce the chances of them growing up to continue the cycle of sexual abuse. They also propose ways in which these new legal approaches can be applied to increase their therapeutic potential. Psychologists and other mental health experts working with sexually dangerous offenders as well as lawyers, policy makers, and students in these fields will find this to be an indispensable sourcebook on this topic.

Protecting Society from Sexually Dangerous Offenders

Protecting Society from Sexually Dangerous Offenders PDF Author: John Q. La Fond
Publisher: Amer Psychological Assn
ISBN: 9781557989734
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 372

Get Book

Book Description
In Protecting Society From Sexually Dangerous Offenders, legal and mental health experts explore the ramifications of the controversial sexual predator commitment laws, registration and community notification laws, and chemical castration laws that have come into existence in the past dozen years. The increasing number of sex crimes, especially those committed by released sex offenders against young victims, has struck a public nerve. Understandably, citizens are angry, vengeful, and fearful, and they demand both retribution and harsh measures to prevent these kinds of crimes from recurring. These intense public demands for retaliation and protection have shaped recent law and public policy, resulting in involuntary commitment programs, notification laws, and chemical castration laws for sex offenders in many states. These new legal strategies raise serious constitutional questions regarding the rights of those who have served their punishment. Perhaps more important is the question of whether these programs are actually effective in preventing sexual recidivism. In this volume, contributing authors discuss the issues surrounding these new legal strategies and the alternatives to such programs. They examine the wisdom and constitutionality of post-incarceration commitment and the difficulty of determining who is most likely to offend again. Contributors propose alternatives to involuntary commitment, including community containment and programs for treating sexually abused children so as to reduce the chances of them growing up to continue the cycle of sexual abuse. They also propose ways in which these new legal approaches can be applied to increase their therapeutic potential. Psychologists and other mental health experts working with sexually dangerous offenders as well as lawyers, policy makers, and students in these fields will find this to be an indispensable sourcebook on this topic.

Preventing Sexual Violence

Preventing Sexual Violence PDF Author: John Q. La Fond
Publisher: Amer Psychological Assn
ISBN: 9781591471721
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
Critiques the current treatment of sex offenders in an effort to determine how best to prevent reoffending without infringing on the rights of citizens. The book offers the latest data about sex offenders and the legal measures enacted to prevent sexual violence.

The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma

The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma PDF Author: Monica Williams
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479836494
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 287

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Book Description
"When a South Carolina couple killed a registered sex offender and his wife after they moved into their neighborhood in 2013, the story exposed an extreme and relatively rare instance of violence against sex offenders. While media accounts would have us believe that vigilantes across the country lie in wait for predators who move into their neighborhoods, responses to sex offenders more often involve collective campaigns that direct outrage toward political and criminal justice systems. No community wants a sex offender in its midst, but instead of vigilantism, [the author] argues, citizens often leverage moral, political, and/or legal authority to keep these offenders out of local neighborhoods. Her book, the culmination of four years of research, 70 in-depth interviews, participant observations, and studies of numerous media sources, reveals the origins and characteristics of community responses to sexually violent predators (SVP) in the U.S. Specifically, [this book] examines the placement process for released SVPs in California and the communities’ responses to those placements. Taking the reader into the center of these related issues, [the author] provokes debate on the role of communities in the execution of criminal justice policies, while also addressing the responsibility of government institutions to both groups of citizens."--

Sex Offenders in the Community

Sex Offenders in the Community PDF Author: Amanda Matravers
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134029217
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 259

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Book Description
This book explores current criminal justice responses to the management of individuals who are convicted of sexual offences. It aims to help policy-makers, practitioners and students to develop an informed position on this complex and increasingly controversial issue. Although the focus is primarily upon the UK context, contributions from North America (USA and Canada) provide an important comparative perspective.

Sexual Predators

Sexual Predators PDF Author: Robert A. Prentky
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136016643
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
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.

Failure to Protect

Failure to Protect PDF Author: Eric S. Janus
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501731165
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
Most crimes of sexual violence are committed by people known to the victim—acquaintances and family members. Yet politicians and the media overemphasize predatory strangers when legislating against and reporting on sexual violence. In this book, Eric S. Janus goes far beyond sensational headlines to expose the reality of the laws designed to prevent sexual crimes. He shows that "sexual predator" laws, which have intense public and political support, are counterproductive.Janus contends that aggressive measures such as civil commitment and Megan's law, which are designed to restrain sex offenders before they can commit another crime, are bad policy and do little to actually reduce sexual violence. Further, these new laws make use of approaches such as preventive detention and actuarial profiling that violate important principles of liberty.Janus argues that to prevent sexual violence, policymakers must address the deep-seated societal problems that allow it to flourish. In addition to criminal sanctions, he endorses the specific efforts of some advocates, organizations, and social scientists to stop sexual violence by, for example, taking steps to change the attitudes and behaviors of school-age children and adolescents, improving public education, and promoting community treatment and supervision of previous offenders.Janus also warns that the principles underlying the predator laws may be the early harbingers of a "preventive state" in which the government casts wide nets of surveillance and intervenes to curtail liberty before crimes of any type occur. More than a critique of the status quo, this book discusses serious alternatives and how best to overcome the political obstacles to achieving rational policy.

Dangerous Offenders

Dangerous Offenders PDF Author: Mark Brown
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134637039
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
This highly controversial new book considers how the dangerous offender has become such a figure of collective anxiety for the citizens of rationalised Western societies. The authors consider: * ideas of danger and social threat in historical perspective * legal responses to violent criminals * attempts to predict dangerous behaviour * why particular groups, such as women, remain at risk from violent crime. This inspired collection invites us to rethink the received wisdom on dangerous offenders, and will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of criminology and the sociology of Risk.

Violence, Sex Offenders, and Corrections

Violence, Sex Offenders, and Corrections PDF Author: Rose Ricciardelli
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 131739383X
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 207

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Book Description
Sex offenders remain the most hated group of offenders, subject to a myriad of regulations and punishments beyond imprisonment, including sex offender registries, chemical and surgical castration, and global positioning electronic monitoring systems. While aspects of their experiences of imprisonment are documented, less is known about how sex offenders experience prison and community corrections spaces – and the implications of their status on their treatment and safety in such environments. Violence, Sex Offenders, and Corrections critically assesses what is meant by the term ‘sex offender’, and acknowledges that such meanings are socially constructed, situated, and contingent. The book explores the person, crime, penal space, sexual orientation, legislation, and the community experiences of labelled sex offenders as well as the experiences of correctional officers working with said custodial populations. Ricciardelli and Spencer use conceptions of gender and embodiment to analyze how sex offenders are constituted as objects of fear and disgust and as deserving subjects of abjection and violence.

Sex Offenders and Preventive Detention

Sex Offenders and Preventive Detention PDF Author: Bernadette McSherry
Publisher: Federation Press
ISBN: 9781862877634
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
How should society manage sex offenders who are released from prison? How can sex offenders be detained in a way that prevents re-offending while respecting civil liberties? Is preventive detention a type of double punishment? Do prison-based sex offender treatment programs work? What is the best way to protect the community from sex offending?Professors McSherry and Keyzer focus on three key modern policy responses to such questions, and the cases that propelled their development:Earl Shriner in Washington State, and the United States approach of detaining 'sexually violent predators' in special institutions;Dennis Ferguson in Queensland, and the Australian post-sentence detention and supervision schemes;John Cronin in Scotland, and the Scottish approach of making orders for lifelong restriction at the time of sentence.

Sex Offenders in the Community

Sex Offenders in the Community PDF Author: Amanda Matravers
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134029144
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This book explores current criminal justice responses to the management of individuals who are convicted of sexual offences. It aims to help policy-makers, practitioners and students to develop an informed position on this complex and increasingly controversial issue. Although the focus is primarily upon the UK context, contributions from North America (USA and Canada) provide an important comparative perspective.