Routledge Violence, Sex Offenders, and Corrections (Routledge Studies in Crime and Society)

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. Review "Sex offenders are everywhere in public discourse about crime and deviance, yet virtually absent from the scholarly literature about prisons and punishment. In this hugely ambitious and penetrating book, Ricciardelli and Spencer draw on a broad conceptual repertoire to help theorise the regulation, treatment and experiences of sex offenders, in correctional settings and beyond. This is a very impressive piece of work, a significant contribution to our knowledge, and a text that is likely to generate a great deal of further research and reflection." - Dr Ben Crewe, Deputy Director of the Prisons Research Centre, University of Cambridge, UK "This is a compelling work that shows how sexual lawbreakers have been and continue to be misunderstood. Ricciardelli and Spencer convincingly assert that the explanations for the ways in which sex offenders are perceived or regarded may be found in sexual expectations and must be considered in light of emotions, gender, power, and stigmatization. They provide an important and much-needed discussion of the prison experiences of sexual lawbreakers, including how incarcerated sex offenders work to manage their spoiled identities for purposes of safety and survival." - David Patrick Connor, Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice, Seattle University, USA About the Author Rose Ricciardelli is Associate Professor and the Coordinator for Criminology in the Department of Sociology, Memorial University, Canada. Her research interests include risk, vulnerabilities, masculinities, prison culture, desistance, and lived experiences of prisoners, correctional officers, and police officers. Dale C. Spencer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Law and Legal Studies and the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Carleton University, Canada. His research interests include masculinities, affect, emotions and the body, policing, violence, and Critical Victimology.