Constructing spoiled identity: The case of the child molester

This dissertation investigates the management of deviant identity in the case of child molesters. It is a micro-sociological investigation of some of the ways in which people labeled sex offenders understand and articulate themselves at a historical moment in which they are vilified and denied full civil rights. Life histories of six sex offenders convicted of charges against minors were collected and analyzed in terms of the narrative strategies employed in the construction of stigmatized identity. The sample was comprised of men in their mid-thirties to early fifties who live in New York State. They had been convicted of a variety of sex offenses, including "statutory" violations, internet-based non-contact offenses, and exhibitionism and public groping.;The men in the study were all connected to their community through a variety of social roles prior to their convictions. Although employment bonds were severed for many, bonds with immediate family members remained intact after their conviction. However, other social bonds were severed as a result of their conviction, and an extensive range of civil restrictions imposed on them as part of their probation. The constraints on civil liberties dictated the quality and rhythm of their day-to-day life in ways that emphasized their dependence on the state. Every participant found himself at least partially unemployed or unemployable because of their conviction and all were in downwardly mobile financial positions.;All participants developed strategies to retain a viable sense of social self. They did not see themselves as monsters who should be excommunicated. Instead they employed a variety of strategies to assert their social worthiness. These included espousing mainstream attitudes toward sex offenders as a dangerous "other". They constructed the idea of an authentic or "real" self that they contrasted with this idea of the dangerous outsider. As insiders with special knowledge of how the system works, these men were able to critique policies in such a way that they reaffirmed the need for the policies at the same time that they distanced themselves from being seen as objects of those sanctions. In this way they reasserted their basic humanity and social worthiness.