Violence, Sex Offenders, and Corrections

Book excerpt: 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.