Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-cfpbc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-20T04:09:33.275Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Pedophiles and Cyber-predators as Contaminating Forces: The Language of Disgust, Pollution, and Boundary Invasions in Federal Debates on Sex Offender Legislation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Mona Lynch
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As a distinct class of criminals, sex offenders stand out as being particularly subject to the new “risk management” penal strategies that, according to a number of scholars, have come to dominate punishment rhetoric and practices in recent years. Nonetheless, the criminal justice policymaking that targets sex offenders appears to have a more emotionally based underside. In this paper, I examine the emotional drive that appears to undergird contemporary sex offender lawmaking, suggesting that a significant force propelling the current panoply of sex offender containment strategies is a constellation of emotional expressions of disgust, fear of contagion, and pollution avoidance, manifested in a legislative concern about boundary vulnerabilities between social spheres of the pure and the dangerous. To do so, I analyze the lawmaking discourse of U. S. legislators as they debated four proposed legislative bills directed at sex offenders during the late 1990s.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 27 , Issue 3 , Summer 2002 , pp. 529 - 557
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2002 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, Rudolph. 1995. Employing the Mental Health System to Control Sex Offenders after Penal Incarceration. Law and Policy 17: 111–30.Google Scholar
Allyn, David. 1996. Private Acts/Public Policy: Alfred Kinsey, the American Law Institute, and the Privatization of American Sexual Morality. Journal of American Studies 3: 405–28.Google Scholar
Archard, David. 1998. Sexual Consent. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Baker, Katharine. 1997. Once a Rapist? Motivational Evidence and Relevancy in Rape Law. Harvard Law Review 110: 563–624.Google Scholar
Bandes, Susan. 1999. Introduction. In The Passions of Law, ed. Bandes, Susan. New York: New York Universit Press.Google Scholar
Beckett, Katherine. 1997. Making Crime Pay: Law and Order in Contemporary American Politics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bedarf, Abril. 1995. Examining Sex Offender Community Notification Laws. California Law Review 85: 885–939.Google Scholar
Berg, Bruce. 1989. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Blomberg, Thomas, Yeisley, Mark, and Lucken, Karol. 1998. American Penology: Words, Deeds, and Consequences. Crime, Law, and Social Change 28: 269–86.Google Scholar
Boland, Ryan. 1995. Note: Sex Offender Registration and Community Notification: Protection, Not Punishment. New England Law Review 30: 183–226.Google Scholar
Bottoms, Anthony. 1983. Neglected Features of Contemporary Penal Systems. In The Power to Punish, ed. Garland, D. and Young, P. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
Brown, Wendy. 1995. States of Injury. Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Bund, Jennifer. 1997. Comment: Did You Say Chemical Castration University of Pittsburgh Law Review 59: 157–92.Google Scholar
Chiricos, Ted. 1998. The Media, Moral Panics, and the Politics of Crime Control. In The Criminal Justice System: Politics and Policies, ed. Cole, George and Gertz, Mark, 58–67. Belmont, Calif.: West.Google Scholar
Cohen, Stanley. 1985. Visions of Social Control. New York: Polity.Google Scholar
Comment. 1997. California Injects New Life into an Old Idea: Taking a Shot at Recidivism, Chemical Castration, and the Constitution. Emory Law Journal 46: 1285–325.Google Scholar
Congressional Record (Cong. Rec.). 1996a. Megan's Law. Congressional Record 142: H4451–57.Google Scholar
Congressional Record (Cong. Rec.). 1996b. Pam Lychner Sexual Offender Tracking and Identification Act of 1996. Congressional Record 142: H11130–35.Google Scholar
Congressional Record (Cong. Rec.) 1996c. Sexual Offender Trcking and Identification Act. Congressional Record 142: S3421–24.Google Scholar
Congressional Record (Cong. Rec.) 1997. Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offenders Registration Improvements Act of 1997. Congressional Record 143: H7626–31.Google Scholar
Congressional Record (Cong. Rec.) 1998. Child Protection and Sexual Predator Punishment Act of 1998. Congressional Record 144, H4491–505.Google Scholar
Darian-Smith, Eve. 1995. Rabies Rides the Fast Train: Transnational Interactions in Post-colonial Times. Law and Critique 6: 75–94.Google Scholar
Dean, Carolyn. 1996. Sexuality and Modern Western Culture. New York: Twayne.Google Scholar
Deems, Robin. 1996. California's Sex Offender Notification Statute: A Constitutional Analysis. San Diego Law Review 33: 1195–240.Google Scholar
Doshay, Lewis. 1943. The Boy Sex Offender and His Later Career. New York: Grune and Stratton.Google Scholar
Douglas, Mary. 1966. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. New York: Frederick Praeger.Google Scholar
Douglas, Mary. 1992. Risk and Blame: Essays in Cultural Theory. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Duncan, Martha Grace. 1994. In Slime and Darkness: The Metaphor of Filth in Criminal Justice. Tulane Law Review 68: 725–802.Google Scholar
Duncan, Martha Grace. 1996. Romantic Outlaws, Beloved Prisons: The Unconscious Meanings of Crime and Punishment. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Dvorak, Richard. 2000. Cracking the Code: “De-coding” Colorblind Slurs during the Congressional Crack Cocaine Debates. Michigan Journal of Race and Law 5: 611–63.Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 1978. The Civilizing Process. Vol. 1, The History of Manners. New York: Urizen Books.Google Scholar
Elias, Norbert. 1982. The Civilizing Process. Vol. 2, Power and Civility. New York: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Elliott, Michele. 1994. Female Sexual Abuse of Children: The Ultimate Taboo. New York Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Feeley, Malcolm, and Simon, Jonathan. 1992. The New Penology: Notes on the Emerging Strategy of Corrections and Its Implications. Criminology, 30: 449–74.Google Scholar
Feeley, Malcolm, and Simon, Jonathan. 1994. Actuarial Justice: The Emerging New Criminal Law. In The Futures of Criminology, ed. Nelkin, David, 173–201. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Finkelhor, David. 1994. Current Information on the Scope and Nature of Child Sexual Abuse. The Future of Children 4: 31–53.Google Scholar
Freiburg, Arie. 2001. Affective Versus Effective Justice: Instrumentalism and Emotionalism in Criminal Justice. Punishment and Society 3: 265–78.Google Scholar
Friedman, Lawrence. 1993. Crime and Punishment in American History. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gagnon, John, and Simon, William. 1970. Sexual Encounters between Adults and Children. New York: Siecus Publications.Google Scholar
Garland, David. 1990. Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Glazer, Sarah. 1996. Punishing Sex Offenders. Congressional Quarterly Researcher (Jan. 12): 27–47.Google Scholar
Golderg-Hiller, Jonathan. 1998. “Entitled to Be Hostile”: Narrating the Political Economy of Civil Rights. Social and Legal Studies 7: 517–38.Google Scholar
Gomes-Schwartz, Beverly, Horowitz, Jonathan M., and Cardarelli, Albert P. 1990. Child Sexual Abuse: The Initial Effects. Newbury Park, Calif.: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Gould, Bob. 1990. Fear of Feminism: The Right Wing and Family Values. Social Justice 17: 136–45.Google Scholar
Haidt, Jonathan, Paul, Rozin, McCauley, Clark, and Sumio, Imada. 1997. Body, Psyche, and Culture: The Relationship between Disgust and Morality. Psychology and Developing Societies 9: 107–31.Google Scholar
Hallsworth, Simon. 2000. Rethinking the Punitive Turn: Economies of Excess and the Criminology of the Other. Punishment and Society 2: 145–60.Google Scholar
Hebenton, Bill, and Thomas, Terry. 1996a. Sexual Offenders in the Community: Reflections on Problems of Law, Community, and Risk Management in the U. S. A., England, and Wales. International Journal of the Sociology of Law 24: 427–43.Google Scholar
Hebenton, Bill, and Thomas, Terry. 1996b. “Tracking” Sex Offenders. Howard Journal 35: 97–112.Google Scholar
Henderson, Philip. 1998. Note: Section 645 of the California Penal Code: California's “Chemical Castration” Law-A Panacea or Cruel and Unusual Punishment University of San Francisco Law Review 32: 653–74.Google Scholar
Jacobson, Robert L. 1999. Note: “Megan's Laws”: Reinforcing Old Patterns of Anti-gay Police Harassment. Georgetown Law Journal 87: 2431–66.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Philip. 1998. Moral Panic: Changing Concepts of the Child Molester in Modern America. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Jenkins, Philip. 2001. Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography on the Internet. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Jones, Michael Owen. 2000. What's Disgusting, Why, and What Does It Matter Journal of Folklore Research 37:53–71.Google Scholar
Kahan, Dan. 1998. The Anatomy of Disgust in Criminal Law. Michigan Law Review 96: 1621–57.Google Scholar
Kahan, Dan. 1999. The Progressive Appropriation of Disgust. In Bandes 1999.Google Scholar
Karpman, Benjamin. 1954. The Sexual Offender and His Offenses. New York: Julian Press.Google Scholar
Kemper, Theodore. 1997. Habits of the Heartless: Emotions and Barbarism. Paper presented at the meeting of American Sociological Association, August 9-13, Toronto, Canada.Google Scholar
Kempf-Leonard, Kimberly, and Peterson, Elicka. 2000. Expanding Realms of the new Penology: The Advent of Actuarial Justice for Juveniles. Punishment and Society 2: 66–97.Google Scholar
Kemshall, Hazel, and Maguire, Mike. 2001. Public Protection, Partnership and Risk Penality: The Multi-agency Risk Management of Sexual and Violent Offenders. Punishment and Society 3: 237–64.Google Scholar
Kristeva, Julia. 1990. “Ours to Jew or Die”: Celine and the Categories of Anti-Semitism. In Anatomy of Racism, ed. Theo Goldberg, David, 171–82. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press.Google Scholar
Levesque, Roger. 1995. Prosecuting Sex Crimes against Children: Time for “Outrageous” Proposals Law and Psychology Review 19: 59–91.Google Scholar
Logan, Wayne. 2000. A study in “Actuarial Justice”: Sex Offender Classification Practice and Procedure. Buffalo Criminal Law Review 3: 593–637.Google Scholar
Lynch, Mona. 1998. Waste Managers? The New Penology, Crime Fighting, and the Parole Agent Identity. Law and Society Review 32: 839–69.Google Scholar
Lynch, Mona. 2000a. Rehabilitation as Rhetoric: The Reformable Individual in Contemporary Parole Discourse and Practices. Punishment and Society 2: 41–67.Google Scholar
Lynch, Mona. 2000b. The Disposal of Inmate #85271: Notes on a Routine Execution. Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 20: 3–34.Google Scholar
Massaro, Toni. 1999. Show (Some) Emotions. In Bandes 1999.Google Scholar
Miller, William Ian. 1997. The Anatomy of Disgust. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Moreno, Joelle. 1997. “Whoever Fights Monsters Should See to It That in the Process He Does Not Become a Monster”: Hunting the Sexual Predator with Silver Bullets-Federal Rules of Evidence 413-415-and a Stake through the Heart-Kansas v. Hendricks. Florida Law Review 49: 505–62.Google Scholar
Nemeroff, Carol and Rozin, Paul. 1994. The Contagion Concept in Adult Thinking in the United States: Transmission of Germs and Interpersonal Influence. Ethos 22: 158–86.Google Scholar
Nussbaum, Martha. 1999. “Secret Sewers of Vice”: Disgust, Bodies, and the Law. In Bandes 1999.Google Scholar
O'Malley, Pat. 1992. Risk, Power, and Crime Prevention. Economy and Society 21: 252–75.Google Scholar
O'Malley, Pat. 1999. Volatile and Contradictory Punishments. Theoretical Criminology 3: 175–96.Google Scholar
Patton, Cindy. 199697. Queer Space/God's Space: Counting Down to the Apocalypse. Rethinking Marxism 9: 1–23.Google Scholar
Peluso, Emanuel, and Putnam, Nicholas. 1996. Case Study: Sexual Abuse of Boys by Females. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology 35: 51–54.Google Scholar
Pisciotta, Alexander. 1994. Benevolent Repression: Social Control and the American Reformatory-Prison Movement. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Pollens, Bertram. 1938. The Sex Criminal. New York: MacAuley.Google Scholar
Pratt, John. 2000. Emotive and Ostentatious Punishment: Its Decline and Resurgence in Modern Society. Punishment and Society 2: 417–40.Google Scholar
Reichman, Nancy. 1986. Managing Crime Risks: Toward an Insurance Based Model of Social Control. Research in Law and Social Control 8: 151–72.Google Scholar
Reinarman, Craig, and Levine, Harry. 1995. The Crack Attack: America's Latest Drug Scare, 1986-1992. In Images of Issues: Typifying Contemporary Social Problems, 2d ed., ed. Best, Joel, 147–86. Hawthorne, N. Y.: Aldine de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Reinarman, Craig, and Levine, Harry. 1997. The Crack Attack: Politics and Media in the Crack Scare. In Crack in America: Demon Drugs and Social Justice, ed. Reinarman, Craig and Levine, Harry, 18–51. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Rozin, Paul. 1999. The Process of Moralization. Psychological Science 10: 218–21.Google Scholar
Rozin, Paul, Haidt, Jonathan, and McCauley, Clark. 1993. Disgust. In Handbook of Emotions, ed. Lewis, Michael and Haviland, Jeannette, 575–94. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Rozin, Paul, Lowery, Laura, Imada, Sumio, and Haidt, Jonathan. 1999. The CAD Triad Hypothesis: A Mapping between Three Moral Emotions (Contempt, Anger, Disgust) and Three Moral Codes (Community, Autonomy, Divinity). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 76: 574–86.Google Scholar
Rozin, Paul, Nemeroff, Carol, Wane, Marcia, and Sherrod, Amy. 1989. Operation of the Sympathetic Magical Law of Contagion in Interpersonal Attitudes among Americans. Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society 27: 367–70.Google Scholar
Rozin, Paul, and Singh, Leher. 1999. Moralization of Cigarette Smoking in the United States. Journal of Consumer Psychology 8: 339–42.Google Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart. 1984. The Politics of Law and Order: Street Crime and Public Policy. New York: Longman.Google Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart. 1991. The Politics of Street Crime: Criminal Process and Cultural Obsession. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Scheingold, Stuart. 1998. Constructing the New Political Criminology: Power, Authority, and the Post-liberal State. Law and Social Inquiry 23: 857–95.Google Scholar
Simon, Jonathan. 1993. Poor Discipline: Parole and the Social Underclass, 1890-1990. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Simon, Jonathan. 1995. They Died with Their Boots On: The Boot Camp and the Limits of Modern Penality. Social Justice: 22: 25–48.Google Scholar
Simon, Jonathan. 1998. Managing the Monstrous: Sex Offenders and the New Penology. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law 4: 452–67.Google Scholar
Simon, Jonathan, and Feeley, Malcolm. 1995. True Crime: The New Penology and Public Discourse on Crime. In Punishment and Social Control: Essays in Honor of Sheldon Messinger, L., ed. Blomberg, T. and Cohen, S., 147–80. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Sparks, Richard. 2001. Degrees of Estrangement: The Cultural Theory of Risk and Contemporary Penology. Theoretical Criminology 5: 159–76.Google Scholar
Steiner, Benjamin. 2001. The Consciousness of Crime and Punishment: Reflections on Identity Politics and Law Making in the War on Drugs. Studies in Law, Politics, and Society 23: 187–214.Google Scholar
Sutherland, Edwin. 1950a. The Diffusion of Sexual Psychopath Laws. American Journal of Sociology 56: 142–48.Google Scholar
Sutherland, Edwin. 1950b. The Sexual Psychopath Laws. Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 40: 543–554.Google Scholar
Sutherland, Kate. 2000. Legal Rites: Abjection and the Criminal Regulation of Consensual Sex. Saskatchewan Law Review 63: 119–44.Google Scholar
Travin, Sheldon, Cullen, Ken, and Protter, Barry. 1990. Female Sex Offenders: Severe Victims and Victimizers. Journal of Forensic Sciences 35: 140–50.Google Scholar
Tyler, Tom, and Boeckmann, Robert. 1997. Three Strikes and You Are Out, But Why? The Psychology of Public Support for Punishing Rule Breakers. Law and Society Review 31: 237–65.Google Scholar
Whitman, Howard J. 1951. Terror in the Streets. New York: Dial Press.Google Scholar
Wilkins, Robert. 1990. Women Who Sexually Abuse Children: Doctors Need to Become Sensitized to the Possibility. British Medical Journal 300: 1153–554.Google Scholar
Wolfgang, Marvin E., and Riedel, Marc. 1975. Rape, Race, and the Death Penalty in Georgia. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 45: 658–68.Google Scholar
Zamoyski, Peter. 1995. Will California's “One Strike” Law Stop Sexual Predators, Or Is a Civil Commitment System Needed San Diego Law Review 32: 1249–96.Google Scholar