Sex offending, and in particular child sex offending, is a complex area for policy makers, theorists and practitioners. A focus on punishment has reinforced sex offending as a problem that is essentially 'other' to society and discourages engagement with the real scale and scope of sexual offending in the UK. This book looks at the growth of work with sex offenders, questioning assumptions about the range and types of such offenders and what effective responses to these might be.

Divided into four sections, this book sets out the growth of a broad legislative context and the emergence of child sexual offenders in criminal justice policy and practice. It goes on to consider a range of offences and victim typologies arguing that work with offenders and victims is complex and can provide a rich source of theoretical and practical knowledge that should be utilised more fully by both policy makers and practitioners. It includes work on female sex offenders, electronic monitoring and animal abuse as well as exploring interventions with sex offenders in three different contexts; prisons, communities and hostels.

Bringing together academic, practice and policy experts, the book argues that a clear but complex theoretical and policy approach is required if the risk of re- offending and further victimisation is to be reduced. Ultimately, this book questions whether it makes sense to locate responsibility for responding to sexual offending solely within the criminal justice domain.

About the Author
John Deering, Jo Brayford, Francis Cowe

Reviews

"... the desire to secure public protection has given rise to a raft of reactionary, restrictive, exclusionary and controlling approaches to contain risk which ultimately inhibit access to integrative opportunities, at the expense of investigating the dynamics of change, engaging and educating the public and critically exploring how communities and individuals might both protect themselves and support offenders' rehabilitation and reintegration. This edited collection represents an important departure from this trend by revealing the sheer heterogeneity among this population and their behaviours, and in illuminating new lines of enquiry that have received comparatively less attention in the past."

- Beth Weaver, Lecturer, University of Strathclyde, in Probation Journal

"All in all, Sex Offenders: Punish, Help, Change or Control is skillfully organized, scrupulously researched, remarkably comprehensive, and palatably verbose. It appropriately fills information gaps other texts on sexually-based offenses may purposefully overlook. Indeed, Brayford, Cowe, and Deering have been undeniably successful at constructing "more than just a series of edited collections" (p. 3), and this text will surely prove useful in a variety of contexts and to a variety of audiences."- Amber L. Morczek, PhD Candidate, Washington State University, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology

Book Information
ISBN 9780415533720
Author Jo Brayford
Format Paperback
Page Count 350
Imprint Routledge
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 612g