ABSTRACT
Sex offender education provides a site for the exploration of a range of issues relating to the role of education in personal change. It is particularly interesting because of its location with respect to a number of established and entrenched boundaries: professional boundaries (e.g. prison officers, welfare workers, educators); disciplinary boundaries (e.g. psychology, social science, education); boundaries between prison and the community, educational compulsion and choice, perpetrators and victims, punitive justice and restorative justice, treatment and education; and boundaries between facilitators and penal enforcers. Although there are the inevitable tensions and ambiguities associated with operating in a highly contested space, they are rendered invisible by the single-minded purpose of sex offender education: the reduction or prevention of reoffending. This chapter focuses on material generated by two primary sources: a comparative study of sex offender management practices (Lundstrom 2002), and curriculum materials developed by the Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM 2002). Lundstrom’s report compares sex offender management practices in Ireland, the UK, Vermont and Canada. She also reports on interviews conducted with a range of stakeholders within the Irish prison system, including sex offenders, prison officers, prison managers, prison educators, specialist services staff and administrative staff.
