Pedophiles and Cyber-predators as Contaminating Forces: The Language of Disgust, Pollution, and Boundary Invasions in Federal Debates on Sex Offender Legislation

Abstract

As a distinct class of criminals, sex offenders stand out as being particularly subject to the new “risk management” penal strategies that, according to a number of scholars, have come to dominate punishment rhetoric and practices in recent years. Nonetheless, the criminal justice policymaking that targets sex offenders appears to have a more emotionally based underside. In this paper, I examine the emotional drive that appears to undergird contemporary sex offender lawmaking, suggesting that a significant force propelling the current panoply of sex offender containment strategies is a constellation of emotional expressions of disgust, fear of contagion, and pollution avoidance, manifested in a legislative concern about boundary vulnerabilities between social spheres of the pure and the dangerous. To do so, I analyze the lawmaking discourse of U. S. legislators as they debated four proposed legislative bills directed at sex offenders during the late 1990s.

Potential Implications of Research on Genetic or Heritable Contributions to Pedophilia for the Objectives of Criminal Law

“…Punishments of retributive justice range in gravity and type based upon the crime perpetrated, ranging from minor indiscretions, such as a monetary fine for a traffic violation, to extremely violent crimes, such as a death penalty sentence for a murder conviction [66]. For pedophilic and child sex offenders, who are often labeled as “modern day monsters” [1] and have created tremendous societal panic and fear [2, 67, 68], rendered punishments by the courts have been retributive and harsh in nature over the last several decades [2] – instead of focusing on rehabilitation or treatment, justice is achieved by punishment solely to manage, control, and contain dangerous sexual predators from the general public. Specifically, sex offenders have been subject to severe sentencing laws aimed at incapacitation [69].…”

“…Thus, it is reasonable to assume that advances in genetic and heritability research could in the future produce similar discussions and possible implications for criminal law and the legal evaluation of offenders diagnosed with pedophilia, as it has with other genetically influenced mental disorders [17, 19-21]. Additionally, taking into account the existing fears and negative perceptions surrounding child sex offending and the justice system’s historical focus on punitive strategies, policies and punishments for pedophilic and child sex offenders [2], suggested genetic influences on pedophilic behavior could also potentially affect how the legal system traditionally approaches the management, adjudication, and punishment of pedophilic offenders.…”

Crack Pipes and Policing: A Case Study of Institutional Racism and Remedial Action in Cleveland

“…To the extent that even deeply rooted, multilevel, and widely strewn instances of institutional racism—as in the case of crack cocaine laws and their application at the federal level—can be deconstructed to identify specific incidents, actors, and institutions that harm specific individuals within specific local communities, a grassroots strategy like the one employed in Cleveland has the potential to remediate some of the damage of the nationwide, racialized war on drugs, either in concert with litigation and/or legislative efforts or on its own. By making the global (or even national or state‐level) local, the door is also opened to using an empathy strategy through the rearticulation of in‐groups that include those who might have formerly been construed as “others.” Certainly, we have seen an individualizing strategy be successfully deployed over the past few decades to toughen state and national criminal law, in that the experiences of individual crime victims have been used by activist groups and legislators to bring home the message of why tougher laws are needed (Lynch 2002; Miller 2008).…”

Entrapped on the Web? Applying the Entrapment Defense to Cases Involving Online Sting Operations

“…While child pornography was a problem that was once believed to be somewhat controllable, the widespread use of the Internet has led to not only a greater level of child pornography but also a greater degree of difficulty in tracking offenders. As a result it is believed to be possible that some offenders may be "slipping through the system" as a result of their ability to avoid detection by keeping their identity anonymous and hiding within the realm of cyberspace (Kaplan 1997;Lynch 2002). Criminal prosecutors today are better trained in the area of handling computer-assisted crime cases, but law enforcement officers must still be capable of proving that the individual distributing child pornography via the Internet is the individual that they have charged with the act.…”