When Science Matters: Shifting Influences on Sex

Offender Punishment

Chrysanthi Leon, JD, PhD CandidateJurisprudence & Social Policy Program

University of California, Berkeleysanthi@aya.yale.edu

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)

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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

“a little, high-domed man… admits molesting more than 100 little girls”

Theories of penality require historical

comparative research

Public anxiety is a necessary but insufficient condition for

increasing incarceration.