Torre 1

relationships

In addition to sex offenders facing significant barriers to being safely integrated into the community, many faced significant challenges when it came to maintaining and developing social and personal relationships, once convicted of a sexual offence. Forming relationships constitutes and facilitates much ‘social

capital’ and can be seen as the basis of many ‘primary human goods’: inner peace, friendship, community, happiness.

In her research into how sex offenders on groupwork programmes view their identity, Hudson (2005) uses the concepts of ‘stigma’ (Goffman, 1963b),

‘extended social identity’ (Breakwell, 2001: Duveen, 2001) and ‘master status,’

(Becker, 1963). Hudson explains how the socially constructed stigma surrounding sexual offending can become internalised, forming an intrinsic part of the way sex offenders perceive themselves. Being a sex offender becomes the

‘master status’ for that individual, the most salient part of identity. Hence, “it is no longer merely the offending act that is unacceptable but the sex offenders themselves” (Hudson 2005, p. 55).

As described in the last section, sex offenders described a preoccupation with, as Ward (2007, p. 187) terms it, “being bearers of risk,” which has resonances with the panopticon metaphor of social control. This self-focus by offenders on the risk they posed suggests that being a sex offender had, for many, become their ‘extended identity’ or ‘master status.’

... but I am very aware that I am a typecast person, if you like. It does make you more ... I think it makes you more aware of yourself and you are that typecast (Offender 6).

Offender 6 went on to amplify this point.

... people thinking ‘there is a bloody paedophile walking down the street here,’ and it is that type of thing, because, again, the media coverage is so great today (Offender 6).

Various offenders illustrated how the social stigma and disapproval created by committing a sexual offence impacts on close friendships and family relationships.

Other people, you’ve been friends for 20 years, and boom, they don’t want to know you because you’ve done that, because they don’t know the something there, do you know what I mean? (Offender 11)

My sister and brother-in-law have stood by me, thick and thin. But this last offence, even they didn't want to know me. My sister has only really recently started to talk to me on the telephone. It's a question of healing time really (Offender 12).

As accounts of offenders verify, not all sex offenders are rejected by their families, after committing a sexual offence. However, maintaining the support of family members when an incest sexual offence had been committed in the family unit, was more rare. Incest offenders reported how family members often felt betrayed, leading to the breaking of contact. Offenders also described how Social Services’ child protection concerns about risk often prevented them from living within the family again, or having unsupervised contact with children, separation that would endure even after the criminal sentence had ended.

My wife, it’s very up and down because Sharon (pseudonym) has been under a lot of stress and pressure, because a] what I have done and b]

she has had a partner for 30 years who she has known and trusted, and I’ve committed a cardinal sin, haven’t I? (sexual abuse of own daughter).The worst sin in their eyes you can possibly admit. We do have some contact but it’s very limited (Offender 6).

I found out my daughter was hit by a bus. So the first thing you know, she could be in hospital; can I see her there? No you’re not allowed. You’ll be in prison if you do. And that hits you as a bullet (Offender 4).

John and Debbie (pseudonyms for the offender’s children) are twins and they are both 15 now. John occasionally rings me up and says ‘hi!’ I can’t do anything about that. Technically I am in breach of my conditions. I told my supervisor that, but I cannot stop him ringing me up (Offender 6).

Offender 8, an ex-psychiatrist, had committed a sexual offence against an the trauma. There’s no possibility of healing and rapprochement (Offender 8).

He also described an incident in which the social consequences of being viewed as a risk to children are very apparent. The account is cited at length because it provides a relatively rare insight into the practical difficulties relatively low risk sex offenders (this offender has only been convicted on one occasion, against a teenage girl) have in integrating back into normative community relations.

And also I am not allowed to ever set foot on the premises of a school example of the mindless, indiscriminate sort of conditions restrictions (Offender 8).

It is clear from the above accounts that, having been convicted of a sexual offence, an individual faces severe challenges in maintaining existing relationships. Often sex offenders are rejected by friends, family members and partners. Often they are prevented from living with families or having un­

supervised contact with children. However, sex offenders also face severe challenges in developing new relationships with partners, as is outlined by

Offender 6, who had one conviction for indecently assaulting his daughter, expressed a more embittered view about the barriers against him forming a relationship with a partner.

I also started another relationship up with a lady and she’s got a child, and the Social Services said ‘well, until we get a report, because we don’t know what risk he is, we are going to say no to everything he wants’, which we knew. Because Social Services, as far as I’m concerned, are about as useful as that brick wall in a greenhouse. That’s just me personally (Offender 6).

Offender 8, the ex-psychiatrist, described the long-term practical difficulties of existing risk protocols, which stipulate that he should never have a child in the house.

Even if their (the offender’s) kids are grown up, they are going to have grandchildren or even if they don’t have children at all, they are going to have friends with children. Just imagine this scenario. Me and my partner are sitting one Sunday morning, enjoying a cup of coffee, reading the newspapers. The door bell rings. There’s a mutual friend of ours, with a 10-year-old child. ‘Oh, can I pop in for a cup of coffee?’ ‘No you can’t.’

‘Why, what’s going on?’ So immediately you’ve got a situation, whereby people start asking questions (Offender 8).

As stated above, according to Offender 8, he had voluntarily disclosed the risky thoughts about children he had been having. He had also disclosed his offending to the authorities before this had been suspected. Offender 8 makes the point that, in his opinion, the risk protocols in his case were unnecessary and did not match his risk profile

And that’s just a scenario, to show how absurd; you can understand it might be relevant in a situation where you had a man who committed sexual offences, who had coerced his partner into silence and who had manipulated family members into collusions and silence. I mean, in my situation, I spontaneously disclosed, nobody forced me to. There was no sense of colluding partners, nothing. So that’s how inappropriate it is. How over the top it is (Sex Offender 8). they have something like this SOPO (Sexual Offences Prevention Order), and they can’t. They can easily, excuse my language, say ‘fuck you’ and ju s t.... But what is so grossly irresponsible, in these SOPOs, is they fail to recognise that the people they are dealing with are human beings with needs, who need to form healthy, intimate relationships, and they don’t realise that by doing this they are seriously impairing one’s capacity to be rehabilitated. I think it is criminal themselves (Sex Offender 8).

The view of Offender 8 resonates with the opinions of proponents of the strengths-based approach, who argue that the formation of healthy, intimate relationships is a means by which sex offenders can obtain the ‘human goods’

and develop the ‘human’ and ‘social capital’ which will make it less likely that they will re-offend. However, those that would privilege risk management and the relapse prevention approach would point out how difficult it is to manage risks of

sex offenders when they are in personal relationships and households with children. In such situations offenders usually have ample opportunity to abuse vulnerable children, with the majority of sex offending occurring in the home, and going unreported (Finkelhor, 1979). Whereas the debate will continue, the current situation is that sex offenders face significant challenges in maintaining and developing relationships with significant others for good or ill, rendering the securing of various ‘human goods’ related to intimate relationships, highly problematic for many.