ABSTRACT
Sexual offending is often considered as somehow inherently ‘different’ from other forms of offending and sexual offenders occupy a special place in contemporary society’s secular demonology. Sexual crime is a mainstay of the tabloid and broadsheet newspapers, where offenders become ‘monsters’, ‘beasts’ and ‘sex fiends’. Within prison walls, ‘ordinary’ offenders see it as normal to harass and bully the sex offender and professionals find them equally difficult to work with because ‘those who perpetrate such crimes are hated and despised more than almost any other offender’ (Sampson 1994: x). Nash has described the 1990s as: ‘the decade of the predatory sex offender, at least in terms of constructing a demon. Across the world a range of legislation has been set in place which seeks to single out this group of offenders for greater punishment, fewer rights and potential exclusion from society’ (1999: 1). A particular hostility has been directed at the sex offender who offends against children. Although experts may debate the true meaning of the word ‘paedophile’, there is little doubt that the paedophile has become the ‘hate figure’ of our time in the popular imagination.
