Moving Full-Speed Ahead in the Wrong Direction? A Critical Examination of US Sex-Offender Policy from a Positive Sexuality Model

Untitled

“…Such harsh policy applied to sexual offenders broadly is driven by public anger following a very small number of the most tragic cases where children have been assaulted and murdered (Griffin & Stitt, 2010). Policy now has expanded to the point that some "sexual offenses" arguably are not sexual, such as urinating in public, and others are not conspicuously criminal, such as sexting, yet those convicted of such transgressions are subject to the same long-term legal ramifications as other sexual offenders (Williams et al, 2015). At the same time, there are large numbers of "offenders" who are 18 years of age or slightly older, but who had consensual sexual interactions with partners who were slightly under age 18.…”

“…Research strongly suggests that there is a critical need for sexual offending policy to become more inclusive and humanizing toward offenders, emphasize ethics and healing for all involved, and move away from legislation driven by fear (Williams et al, 2015). A more humanizing, inclusive stance rooted in restorative justice, rather than harsh retribution, lowers offenders' risk for recidivism; promotes healing for victims, offenders, and loved ones of those involved; while also reducing additional harm and injustice that many offenders and their families experience.…”

“…He was always a person that everyone loved. thus correcting major deficits of current policy (Williams, et al 2015).…”

“…A recent literature review by scholars from the Center for Positive Sexuality found that current policy is based largely on these myths and that these myths are rooted in widespread cultural sexnegativity and fear, which then contribute to the stigmatization and dehumanization of sexual offenders and their families (Williams et al, 2015). Unfortunately, we should reasonably expect that policy rooted in sexnegativity and myths, rather than scholarship, will be ineffective and perhaps increase offenders' risk for reoffense, rather than decreasing it.…”

Sexuality, pleasure, power, and danger: Points of tension, contradiction, and conflict.

“…Fahs, Dudy, and Stage (2013) posited that moral panics about "deviant" or "weird" sexuality divert attention from actual sources of danger, thereby framing the dangerous as safe and the safe as dangerous or in danger; by framing various cultural crises of sexuality through moral panics, attention veers away from actual dangers (e.g., invisibility of unprotected anal sex among teen girls) and toward fake dangers (e.g., lesbians marrying, sex scandals in the media). Such panics about scary sex also obscure the pervasiveness of sexual coercion and sexual violence by instead focusing attention on tiny populations of sex offenders instead of directing attention at normative masculinity as potentially violent (Fahs, 2016b;Mopas & Moore, 2012;Williams, Thomas, & Prior, 2015).…”