according to one’s epistemological position, either represents the ‘moral consensus’ or the interests of dominant groups (eg think about the criminalising and decriminalising of ‘homosexual’ activity). Biomedical understanding of ‘sexual deviation’ is independent of the law, defining some sex offences as the result of (mental) illness. However, as with the law, the viewpoint generally embodies dominant moral values but uses ‘scientific’ language to define a variety of sexual predilections, including those that inflict harm on non-consenting victims. These definitions focus on the acts deemed to be wrong, illegal or deviant. Psychological perspectives tend not to define particular acts (other than to recognise that they may be illegal and harmful) within an overall schema; rather, the focus is on individuals manifesting problematic behaviours (as defined by themselves or the criminal justice system). Forensic psychology has developed a range of classificatory systems for people who have sexually harmed children and adults; these systems carry implicit or explicit aetiological assumptions about the behaviours.
Figure 2.1 illustrates the interrelated nature of these perspectives, with individualised concerns nearer the centre of the circle. Societal responses to sex crimes are embodied in penal policy and the practices of the criminal justice system; it is within (and beyond) these that social workers primarily operate.
Figure 2.1: Understandings of sex crimes
The third part of the chapter is concerned with exploring issues relating to sex offenders. We register three caveats. First, we recognise and discuss ‘unconvicted’ sex offenders in the second part of this chapter; in the third part of the chapter, the discussion focuses on convicted sex offenders. Second, the generic term ‘sex offender’ conceals the heterogeneity of the sex-offending population; in our statement of values in Chapter One, we recognise that sex offenders are a diverse population, and, where appropriate, we highlight and discuss issues of difference. The final caveat recognises that discussion of the ‘individual’ sex offender potentially ignores group offences (eg gang rapes, paedophile rings, ‘sex’ trafficking and rape in conflict and post-conflict settings). The making and viewing of child pornography is both an individual and a group offence (see Henshaw et al, 2015). Group offending dynamics are largely beyond the scope of this book and we refer readers to the following sources as starting points for further study: on gang rapes, see Chambers et al (2013); on females in gangs, see Wijkman et al (2015); on trafficking, see Breuil et al (2011); and on rape in conflict and post-conflict settings, see Sexual Violence Research Initiative (2014).
A note on epistemology
It is important to recognise epistemological influences on how knowledge is shaped. Foucault (1977, 1984) highlights the relationship between power and knowledge, and suggests that in late 19th-century Europe, scientific (medicine and psychology) and social-scientific (criminology, social work and psychology) forms of knowledge replaced religion as the dominant way of understanding both sexuality and social responses to deviance. In his analysis, Foucault did not, however, utilise a structuralist perspective. Structuralist understandings of the operation of power identify hierarchical ‘divisions’ of societies, such as class, gender, race and sexuality (Lukes, 2005). Early feminist theory particularly focuses on the social division of gender and analyse(s) how men have maintained power in most global societies. Feminist epistemologists (eg Harding, 1991, 2006; Code, 2006; Fricker, 2007) focus attention on how male knowledge, specifically ‘scientific’ knowledge, has both embodied and maintained the hierarchy of gender while adopting methodologies predicated on ‘objectivity’ (Harding, 1991, p 81). Other structuralist critiques referred to in Chapter One highlight the privileging of ‘white’ forms of knowledge; black feminists in the US insisted on the importance of race in seeking to understand sex crimes. The strength of feminist analysis of sex crimes is that it locates the discussion in a wider analysis of women’s oppression; this ideological orientation, however, may have delayed the full recognition of females who sexually harm others and male victims of sexual harm. In scrutinising underlying epistemological assumptions of ways of understanding sex crime and sex offenders, we adopt a critical approach to the forms of knowledge we explore and describe.
Victim perspectives
The perspectives of victim-survivors of sex crimes are primarily concerned with the impact of offending on them personally. There are an increasing number of accounts of being groomed available on the internet (eg Surviving Therapist Abuse, 2009). Briere and Elliott (2003), in a study of 935 subjects, identified that 49.6% were male and 50.4% were female, and the mean subject age was 46 years, with a range of 18 to 90. They found that childhood sexual abuse is a significant risk factor for a range of psychological and psychiatric disorders and problems, including depression, phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorder, panic disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, sexual disorders and both suicidal ideation and suicide attempts. The nature of the abuse – intrafamilial or extrafamilial – did not affect psychological outcome, neither did the sex of the abuser. Similarly, Deering and Mellor (2011) note that the consequences of sexual abuse by women on their victims are similar to when the offender is a man, including depression, substance abuse (Tsopelas et al, 2012) and self-harm (Denov, 2004). Deering and Mellor (2011), talking with both male and female survivors of female sexual abuse, found high levels of self-reported anger and aggression, difficulties with intimate relationships, and psychosexual malfunctioning, all of which are similar to the consequences of being abused by a man.
However, it is important to recognise that not all victims speak about their experiences. Kenny and McEachern (2000) and Futa et al (2001) have noted that ‘sexual abuse’ remains a concept constructed through discourses that have usually been in English, and that have generally explored the experiences of white children in North America, Western Europe and Australasia, rather than those of children in Asia, Africa and South America, or in minority communities in the West. Additionally, cultural notions of shame and modesty have been shown to inhibit South Asian victims from speaking about their experiences (Gilligan and Akhtar, 2006). Moreover, Valentine (2008) has noted that language is a gendered phenomenon, and in South Asian languages, it reproduces the gendered social order, thus restricting or preventing some victims from speaking authentically about their experiences. The challenge in understanding sex offending is to consider the many academic disciplinary perspectives alongside the authentic language of victim-survivors.
Understanding sex crimes
Sociological understandings
At the outset of this section, we recognise that we use the term ‘sociological’ to include criminological and social-anthropological work. We address three areas that locate sex crimes within a social context: identities, the construction of risk and understanding desistance.
Identities: problematic men, invisible women and the young sex offender
The term ‘identity/ies’ opens up a complex area of social theory that disputes the nature of identity: is it an innate aspect of a person that is fixed and unchanging, or is it contingent on time and place, and therefore changeable? Similarly, there are debates about the various strands of identity, for example, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, (dis)ability and so on. These debates explore whether there is a dominant identity to which others are subordinate. These explorations, while important, potentially deflect from the focus of this section. However, the sociological concept of ‘intersectionality’ is useful here (see Crenshaw, 1991; Grabham et al, 2009; Walby et al, 2012), in that it looks at the different dimensions of identity and how they intersect with one another across place and time. For example, in understanding and responding to sex offenders, it may be important to consider not only ‘race’ in its crudest form, but also issues related to masculinity, ethnicity and faith. Moreover, these issues have to be considered within a dynamic context involving time, location and (social) situation.
