Caught In the Spider's Web: Supervision and Control of Individuals Released After Serving a Federal Sentence for Sexual Offences

Abstract

Ex-prisoners who are attempting to (re)integrate into the community after serving a federal sentence for a sexual offence face numerous challenges, including discrimination, stigma and social exclusion. They are the ‘monsters’ and ‘evil-doers’ that society fears; their place within our communities is contested as they are perceived as irredeemable and untreatable. Often, they have lost the support of family and friends, their place of employment and their social status. Once they are released, the identity markers they were previously able to draw on become unavailable and they have to find new roles for themselves. Drawing on fifteen interviews with male ex-prisoners convicted of sexual offences, and eleven interviews with professionals who work with them, this research project seeks to understand how the released sex offender is constructed in correctional discourse and how this construction may impact his identity possibilities. Focusing on those individuals who are subjected to release conditions (such as the long-term supervision order) this research maps out the governance terrain that released sex offenders inhabit, as well as the strategies used by professionals in their work with service recipients. Finally, this project ponders the role of truth and confession in the management of released sex offenders. I argue that individuals released into the community after serving a prison sentence for sexual offences are subjected to intense control and surveillance strategies that concretely and severely restrict their ability to form new relationships and inhabit new roles not predicated on their master status as sex offenders. They are essentially stuck in the role of sex offender even as they are encouraged to desist from offending and to find a place for themselves in the community.