ABSTRACT
The term ‘sex offender’ ignites a highly emotive response. Depictions of the ‘predatory sex offender’ and the ‘anonymous stranger’ who abducts, rapes and kills women and children renders all convicted sexual offenders as ‘outcasts’ (Farrell and Soothill 2001; McCartan 2010; Sampson 1994; Silverman and Wilson 2002; Soothill and Walby 1991; Young 2004). Such demonisation and hatred is clearly fuelled by the media, in particular the print media. As Brayford and Deering’s chapter in this book discusses, sex offenders, particularly those that offend against children, feature prominently in tabloid and broadsheet papers and frame society’s understanding of sexual offending within such stereotypical imagery. Here, sex offenders become ‘monsters’, ‘beasts’ and ‘sex fiends’ (Thomas 2000: 1), disguising the truth that, in reality, they are friends, family and loved ones (Flatley et al. 2010). As such, the wider public seem unable to distinguish between different forms of sexual offending. Sex offenders become amalgamated into one offending group, 1 often defined as ‘paedophiles’, contrary to the true meaning of the word (Harrison et al. 2010), and indeed whether the individual has even committed an offence against a child. Current media rhetoric therefore ignores the more typical sex offender and, in doing so, renders real offenders ‘invisible’ (Thomas 2000). Previous research has identified how convicted sex offenders seek to divorce themselves from this negative identity (Hudson 2005; Scully 1990; Scully and Marolla 1984; Sykes and Matza 1957). It is their desire to maintain their ‘invisibility’ that this chapter is interested in.
