ABSTRACT
The increase in the number of sexual offences being reported and recorded has created what, in other areas, the criminologist Professor Stanley Cohen has labelled a ‘moral panic’ about sexual offending. Media reporting has given the impression that there has been an unprecedented explosion in sexual crime, and that women and children are increasingly at risk of attack by sexual monsters. This has been supported by politicians anxious to play the law and order card, and their call for tougher treatment for sex offenders has gone largely unopposed. The result has been significant hardening of sentencing policy towards sexual offenders.
