Difficulties Faced by The Criminal Justice System in Responding to Sex Offenders

In this essay, I will be evaluating the current laws and legislations that have been put in place by the criminal justice system in responses to sex offenders. I will briefly define what a sex offender is, what derives people to become one and how government has tried to prevent sex offenders from re offending. I will also be discussing how the media portrays sexual offenders and how they are portrayed to the public. I will also touch beefily on research on public attitudes towards sex offenders and finally evaluating how the criminal justice system response to them. 

The oxford dictionary defines a ‘sexual offender’ as: “a person who has been found guilty of illegal sexual acts”. A sex offender is an individual who has committed a sexual crime, an act which is prohibited by law.’ What constitutes a sex offence or normal and abnormal sexual behaviour varies over time and place’. What is established as a sex offender changes by legal jurisdiction and culture around the world. The age of consent around the word varies from 9-21. This means that in some counties across the globe, sexual activity is illegal and, in some counties, legal. Most of the people who have been convicted for crimes in relation to a sexual nature have not violated a law contained a sexual category. Majority of the crimes which are most likely to result in individuals being classed as a sex offender are known as second prostitution conviction. Examples of this include a relationship between adults and teenagers, internet grooming, sexual harassment, sending text messages from and to minors etc.

It is recorded that there were 53,665 sexual offences across England and Wales in 2011/12 making up 1% of all police recorded crime. In late 2012, the police recorded 53,700 sexual offences in England and Wales. There was 16,000 rape cases and 22,100 sexual assaults which accounted for 71% of sexual offences reported by the police. In 2011, there were 1,500 offenders who were incarcerated and admitted they had committed a sexual offence. However, trends in recorded statistics depends on whether or not the victim feels comfortable enough to report sexual crimes to the police. For example, there was 17% decreased in recorded sexual offences between 2005-2006 and 2008-2009 and also 2010-2011. The latter increase may be due to the greater reassurance and encouragement by the police the to victims to come forward and improvements in police recordings, rather than an increase in level of victimisation. 

In some situations, it is very challenging to distinguish the similarities between non-sex offenders and actual sex offenders. It is believed that numerous sex offenders have many sexual abnormal fantasies about children and young adults as well as a very high sex drive. People usually believe majority of sexual crimes are committed by strangers however, majority of the victims know their attacker. Most sex offenders do not suffer from mental illnesses as shown in this article, less than 5% of individuals who commit sexual crimes suffer from a psychotic mental illness.

Since the beginning of time, there has been numerous articles, books, journal articles and more that have tried to explain why people become sex offenders and commit sexual crimes. ‘Since sexual deviance takes several forms, no single theory maybe adequate to account for all aspects’ research has conducted two main explanation as to why people commit sexual offences.

Biological theories (also known as evolutionary theory) of sex offending are focussed on the abnormalities in the construction of the brain, chromosomal, genetic make-up, hormone level and deficits in intellectual functioning. Studies investigating the relation between sexual offenders and hormonal abnormalities usually focused on the role of certain hormones (e.g., testosterone) known to be related to physical changes in males. To date, these studies have not found evidence of a clear link between hormone levels and sexual offending. The second theory Is Social learning theory. This theory believes that people get exposed and learn certain things in their lives which cause them to believe it is the correct way to live. This theory mostly focuses on childhood experiences, particularly within the family by either getting victimised by an adult in or close to their family or getting exposed to pornography at a young age. This could then lead then to them being insecure and make them want to be the one in power instead of the one being taken advantage of.

Becoming a victim of sexual offender can have numerous psychological and traumatizing effects. The media and public only notice two types of crimes which as: sexually offending against children or woman. In recent years, numerous countries have started to alter their laws concerning sex offenders. The criminal justice system is reinforcing the laws and legislations and altering the punishments as society believes it is too lenient.

The media is known to be one of the most powerful sources of giving news to the general public. It is likewise known to powerfully affect the open view of explicit issues, for instance sex offenders. For a story to enter the media, it needs to meet a certain ‘newsworthy’ scale which helps the media companies to attract larger audiences, therefore increasing their profit. Child sex offenders have continuously received a huge amount of negative news coverage by the media, causing a topic for public debate. The media usually uses strategies and tactics in form of triggering words and imagery to influence how society views specific criminals. One example of this is the words used to describe Equan Yunus. Yunus was labelled a sex offender in New York for kidnapping a 14-year-old boy, even though no sex crime was committed. The headline read “There was a lot of shame': meet the sex offender ‘who is not a sex offender”. This was even though this was shown to be a reoffending case, it shows how society can view anyone involved in sex offender crimes as 100% guilty before the court says so.

Today, the increasing amount of awareness and knowledge on sex offenders has roused strong social reaction, resulting in the increasing coverage of them by the media. Gakhal & Brown report on how newspapers represented a female child sexual perpetrator as ‘evil monsters.  This has taken a dramatic change from how they were previously portrayed and has given society a new way of viewing a serious problem that has come to light.

Most types of the media report in different ways; some use stereotyping as a strong influential tool, others are more objective by presenting the facts of the case. All, nevertheless, have had a positive effect as they have raised some new issues that society face. The media also influences the way the public think and feel about the victim. In some situations, the public would show the victim that there are on his/her side. This is usually done though social media platforms or in some situations protects. The media influences the way the public feel which then affects how the victim goes though their traumatizing period. The criminal justice now has a responsibility to meet the needs of the public and the victim. The media amplifies the fear and deviance of society which is turn into a ‘moral panic’. This then has led to reactionary and extreme political and legal responses. 

The criminal justice system has to respond to the way the media has portrayed sex offenders and how they are viewed. They face a significant amount of difficulties in regard to responding to the stigma formed against them and, they have to develop programmes, legislations, and laws in order to protect the public and the sex offenders themselves.

One significant difficulty faced by the criminal justice system in responding to sex offenders is how they have to respond to the victims of the sex offenders. Improving the experiences of vitamins of crime in the criminal justice process is a main priority for the government. The government emphasizes, survivors and victims have unique needs characterized by their gender, their victimization, their relationship with the offender and with their community, and their own personal characteristics.

The Government perceives that the effect of victimization is deep rooted and for some people, life changing. In the event that the experience of victims in the criminal justice system is to be improved, there must be better comprehension of the effect of exploitation and of the need to treat survivors of wrongdoing with kindness, sympathy, poise, and affectability. There must be consistent advancement in bringing issues to light and extending data administrations and help to casualties of wrongdoing, yet it is not quick enough for some. Perspectives about casualties' needs are changing among the police, the lawful calling (Crown, protection, and judge) and other framework authorities. Be that as it may, mentalities of survivors of wrongdoing about their needs are changing also. They will not acknowledge being closed out of key choices and kept clueless, yet they look for greater responsibility from, and more investment in, the criminal equity framework.

Before the Criminal justice Act 1991, the legislations and laws regarding sex offences were outdated. They were following the previous law on sex offenders known as’ Sexual Offences Act 1956’. In the 20th century, society’s fear of sex offenders has reached a global pandemic. Society often views anyone who commits a sexual offence is a high-risk sexual offender. The following sex offender law was ‘sex offenders act 1997. This legislation made it significantly easier to identity and manage the sex offender that were previously realised. Every

Sex offender had to register their name and addresses with the police which protect and manage the public. The legislation was mostly prepared to decrease the risk amongst the community and so every sex offender could be monitored for up to 5 years. In 1998 the Crime and Disorder Act paid notice to ‘extending the post-release supervision of sex offenders to a maximum of 10 years for a prison sentence of any length’. Section 2 also announced the sex offender order. A sex offender order is a civil prevention order formed by the magistrates’ court on application by the police. If the police believed that a sex offender is currently acting or has previously acted in a way that gives reasonable cause to believe than an order is necessary to protect the public from server harm by him/her, they are eligible to apply the order. If a sex offender has beached any of the prohibitions, it carries a maximum of five years in prison. Since the sex offenders act 2003 was put into effect, longer sentences were introduced. This allowed lengthier periods of formal supervision in the community, and for high risk sex offenders, the life sentence was put into effect. The new legislation on sex offenders also altered the definition of rape by including penetration to the mouth, vagina, or anus with a penis with lack of consent. Internet ‘grooming’ is when an adult tries to organise meeting or/and has sexual conversation online, this was also defined as being an illegal act as well.

When a sex offender has been convicted, 2/3 of sex offenders instantly go to prison. (Serious violent and sexual offenders to spend longer in prison) The rest are taken care of by supervision or probation orders, fines and some are later discharged. The sex offenders who were charged or find guilty are usually obligated to record their names in the sec offender’s registry. This information is fully accessible by the public, a high-risk sex offender has to be registered for the rest of their lives whereas a low risk sex offender’s name must be on the record for specific amount of time. The review of sex offenders treatment programme stated that the highest risk sex offenders are characterised by the following factors : criminal activity convicted of diverse sexual offending (different age, genders, location or victims), emotional loneliness, psychopathic personality, low victim empathy, anti-social lifestyle and problem solving abilities and finally sexually deviant arousal or imagination.