Child Sexual Abuse: Media Representations and Government Reactions

This book aims to critically evaluate the development of policy and legislative measures to control sex offenders in the UK. It is argued that legislation has developed in a reactionary way in response to media and public anxiety regarding the punishment and control of sex offenders (who have abused children)and the perceived threat of such offenders in the community. The last fifteen years has seen increasing concern on the part of the government, criminal justice agencies, the media and the public regarding child sexual abuse. This concern has been prompted by a series of events including cases inviting media attention and involving the abduction, sexual abuse and murder of young children. The Labour Government's response to this wave of child sexual abuse revelation has been to introduce increasingly punitive legislation regarding the punishment and control of sex offenders(sex offenders are the only group of offenders in British legal history to have their own act), both in custody and in the community. Recent legislation has sought to establish a long-term register of offenders and to endow the police with the power to track and monitor those known, or believed, to have committed sexual offences against children. Considerable media and public pressure to make information from the register available to parents, was placed upon the Government following the abduction and murder of eight-year-old Sarah Payne. There are no current plans to make the register public but the Government may review this position in the face of continuing public pressure, particularly in the wake of the Soham case. This has taken place against a backdrop of a crisis in public confidence regarding the behaviour of child protection professionals, whose practice has come under intense scrutiny with the publication of Butler -Sloss Report, the Waterhouse Report and the Laming Report.