Disparities in public protection measures against sexual offending in England and Wales: An example of preventative injustice?

Abstract

This article analyses the use of criminal justice measures aimed at the prevention of sexual offending across England and Wales. Specifically, it focusses on measures such as the 'sex offenders register' and sexual offences prevention orders (SOPOs) and the use of sanctions for their breach. Following a discussion of the apparent tensions between individual rights and public protection measures we present an original analysis of data collated from Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangement (MAPPA) area reports over a nine-year period. Our analysis reveals considerable variation between areas in both the risk-level allocation of cases, the imposition of SOPOs and sanctions for non-compliance with MAPPA. We argue that these disparities raise issues concerning both the rights and autonomy of those subjected to public protection measures and highlight the need for further detailed research into MAPPA practices.

Collateral consequences of criminal records from the other side of the pond: How exceptional is American penal exceptionalism?

“…Those with sexual offence convictions may also be subject to the imposition of restrictive court orders which may, for example, prohibit – and render an imprisonable offence – unsupervised contact with children or unmonitored access to the Internet. However, the imposition of such orders has been shown to be inconsistently applied across different police force areas (Hudson and Henley, 2015). More generally, despite the so-far failed attempts to create a Europe-wide sex offender registry – frustrated, among other reasons, by the opinion that sex offenders’ registration would constitute a breach of the right to private life provision (Article 8) of the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR) (Newburn, 2010: 571–580) – different regimes are more and more frequently starting to emerge in continental Europe.…”