| My dissertation traces the historical evolution of sex offender punishment in California from 1930 to 2007. Until about 1980, this punishment regime (for better and for worse) differentiated among sex offenders, tracking the majority of offenders as misdemeanants, civilly committing some, and sending others to prison. After 1980, the reduction in penal strategies which marked the crime control field as a whole led to increased sex offender incarceration---a tailwind effect of general incarceration. Lack of differentiation among sexually offending conduct also characterized other shifts in penal policy after 1980, including laws authorizing community notification and restrictions on where released sex offenders may live.; Since the public has almost always held an undifferentiated image of the sex offender as a monster, sex offender policy is likely to continue to show increasing punitiveness even when general incarceration moderates. Experts and criminal justice decision-makers---especially victim advocates and prosecutors---will have to publicly identify the problems caused by addressing sex offenders as a unitary group if we hope to change course in favor of responses which would truly improve public safety, allocate scarce resources wisely, and protect all citizens from harm and injustice. |
