“The Exclusion–Inclusion Spectrum in State and Community Response to Sex Offenders in Anglo-American and European Jurisdictions”

Source: (2007) International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology. 20(10): 1-21

Continental European and Anglo-American jurisdictions differ with regard to criminal
justice and community responses to sex offenders on an exclusion–inclusion spectrum
ranging from community protection measures on one end to therapeutic programs in
the middle and restorative justice measures on the other end. In the United States,
populist pressure has resulted in a community protection approach exemplified by sex
offender registration, community notification, and civil commitment of violent sexual
predators. Although the United Kingdom and Canada have followed, albeit more
cautiously, the American trend to adopt exclusionist community protection measures,
these countries have significant community-based restorative justice initiatives, such as
Circles of Support and Accountability. Although sex offender crises have recently
occurred in continental Europe, a long-standing tradition of the medicalization of
deviance, along with the existence of social structural buffers against the influence of
victim-driven populist penal movements, has thus far limited the spread of formal
community protection responses.