when science matters: shifting influences on sex offender punishment chrysanthi leon, jd, phd...
TRANSCRIPT
When Science Matters: Shifting Influences on Sex
Offender Punishment
Chrysanthi Leon, JD, PhD CandidateJurisprudence & Social Policy Program
University of California, [email protected]
I. Grounding theories of contemporary
penality through historical comparison
II. Ch. 1 The Sexual Psychopath Era:
A. Panic & Policy
B. Mediating Punitiveness
Scholar Input Key mechanism Output
Garland Social structure and politics (late modernity)
Erosion of penal-welfare model
Mass imprisonment, punitive politics;
Zimring Vengeful public, distrust of experts
Policy-makers lose insulation
Direct democ. control of pun.
Tonry War on Poverty Fails
Cycles of Punitiveness
Increasing Incarc of Drug Offenders
Simon Policy-makers react to fear of crime
Breakdown of social activist-style of gov’ing
Detention and Segregation; Gov’ing Thru Crime
Wacquant Neo-liberalism Race acted on through the prison and ghetto
Prison society
193219351938194119441947195019531956195919621965196819711974197719801983198619891992199519982001M
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The Mystery:CA Sex Offense Prison
Admissions
From 1940 to 1971, 48% decreaseFrom 1971 to 1984, 486% increase
The Project
Intellectual and Legal History, 1930-present
• Caselaw and legislation (California)
• News Media• Theory and Research
(Psych, Crim and Soc)• Longitudinal Prison
Admissions Data
California case study• Interviews with law
enforcement and treatment professionals
• Participant Observation in state-wide coalition on sexual offending
Knowledge and Practice in Three Eras
Sexual Psychopath Era,1930-55:
dominated by a notion of criminalityTherapeutic Optimism, 1955-80:
dominated by an ideologyContainment Era, 1980-present:
dominated by a practice
The Sexual Psychopath Era: Findings
Beliefs—the media constructs, fringe experts confirm, and law refers to a monstrous sex fiend, plagued by uncontrollable desires who must be captured.
Strategies—Gov’t responds, first with policies based on incapacitation, then research/ treatment emphasis.
Prison—No Significant change, despite sexual psychopath laws.
The Sexual Psychopath Era
Conclusions: Conflicts Deflect Punitiveness
Criminological Expertise: Fringe vs. Mainstream; Mainstream moves on.
Construction of Monstrous Offender (by media and fringe experts) vs. Neighborhood Crank/Regular Guy
“the most notorious that have occurred within the state of
California in recent years…
…received so much newspaper publicity and were so
much the subject of general conversation …
..unbelievable that any person who had
read the newspapers at all, or who had indulged in
ordinary conversation with his neighbors or friends, was
not made familiar with the details of the atrocities
perpetrated in each of those cases.”
People v. Adams, 1939 at 163.
Glucoft Murder & Its Influence: Edwin Sutherland
a crackdown on strip clubs strict enforcement of registration laws a $50,000 apportionment to a sex offender
clinic, and the creation of a coordinated detail on sex
offenses in the LAPD.
Cesare Lombroso, Criminal Man: Criminality as Biology
“Some sex crimes are caused by congenital tendencies in born rapists with a cretinal diathesis that either stimulates the genitals or provokes insanity.”
“When I read accounts of a sex crime I am again amazed at the stupidity of the public in general and the lawmakers in particular.
Surely everyone knows that there is a cure for the sex maniac… any surgeon can do it in a few minutes.”
N. K. Randolph, MD, 1949
Public Opinion: Biology/Incapacitation
“the public is aroused and it has a right to expect action. He asked for special consideration of ways of halting attacks on little children”
Gov. Earl Warren’s Conference, 1949: Policy-makers Respond
Key Events in the SP Era
1934: APA Section on Forensic Psychiatry
1937: Natl Cmte for Mental Hygiene "The Challenge of Sex Offenders"
1937: MI sp law (later found unconst)
1938: IL sp law 1939: CA sexual
psychopath law 1947: Sex offender
Registration Law (CA) 1950: Sexual
Deviation Research Act (CA)
1930 1935 1940 1945 1950 1955
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Rape Other Sex
The Mystery Revisited: Flat Sex Offense Incarceration Rates During the Sexual Psychopath Era
Mediating Public Punitiveness
“People who are so incensed today and who are urging drastic measures like castration for sex criminals, are the same ones who in a couple of years will be importuning us to quash a case against some pillar of the community-- some churchman or kindly old grandfather.”
LAPD Officer, 1949
Snapshot of LA County: 1949
3000 arrested for child molestationmost often charged as
misdemeanor – six months probation
1078 “imprisoned”– 281 enter prison