rejecting it on public protection grounds (Dodd, 2000, July 24: Guardian.co.uk; Morris, 2000, July 31: Guardian.co.uk; Plotnikoff & Woolfson, 2000), then reconsidered and provisionally agreed to implement it (Assinder, 2006, June 20: bbc.co.uk; ‘Sarah’s Law to Start in Months’, 2007, April 9:TheSun.co.uk), before being quickly backtracking and discounting the scheme (Travis, 2007, April 11: Guardian.co.uk). It was then agreed that the partial public disclosure of sex offender information was a more realistic alternative (Home Office, 2007), resulting in the addition of ‘lay advisers’ to MAPPA panels, an increased use of CRB checks, an increased use of CEOP to publically disclose the names of dangerous, prolific sex offenders, and the introduction of circles of support and accountability pilot schemes. Recently the government has agreed and started to implement the limited public disclosure of sex offender information in England & Wales, dismissing the need for full public disclosure similar to America (Home Office, 2010). This move is based upon the results of a pilot study revealing low inquiry rates by the public, high degrees of public confidentiality and no public disorder or vigilantism (Kemshall et al, 2010). However, there does seem to be differences in the piloting of, support for and implementation of the current limited public disclosure scheme throughout the four countries of the UK (i.e., England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). Hence, even though the scheme was piloted in England and Wales, all the police forces where English and none welsh; with the scheme having clearly delineated roll out dates in England, but not Wales instead only having a general implementation target of early 2011 (Home office, 2010); a similar pilot study was undertaken in Scotland leading to a rapid implementation of a similar scheme prior to the end of 2010 (‘Sex Offender disclosure Pilot’, 2009, 27 May: Scotland.gov.uk; Chan, Homes, Murray & Treanor, 2010); and there are no plans to
“…[the government] sort of subscribes to the more extreme image of sex offenders being prolific, dangerous and all the rest of it.” (Participant 6; Psychologist). “...the government chooses to sort of see sexually offending against children as being, or paedophilia in particular, as being something that is difficult to treat, that is something that is a risk management issue,” (Participant 25; Probation). In addition to this there was no clear consensus amongst these participants on what the role of the government should be in regard to child sexual abuse. The participants proposed a variety of potential roles, including, providing legislation (62%, n= 8); providing support for research (23%, n= 3); listening to victims, agencies, charities and NGOs (31%, n= 4); funding agencies (8%, n= 1); and ultimately arguing that the government needs to be child protection orientated (38%, n= 5). “So anything which effectively helps children avoid getting into abusive situations, report them early and all the rest of it. It’s preventative measures which need to be funded...” (Participant 6; Probation) A small sample of this cross section of participants (16%, n= 2), both practitioners, stressed that the UK government could do more in response to child sexual abuse. These participants argued that in order to develop more realistic child sexual abuse policies the government needed to listen to professional advice more, interact better with practitioners, as well as emphasise an evidence-based approach to policy
Krippendorff, K. (2004) Content Analysis: an introduction to its methodology (2nd Ed.). London: Sage. Levi, R. (2000) The mutuality of risk and the community: the adjudication of community notification statutes. Economy & Society. 29(4) pp 578-601. Lewis, P. (2007) arrests 83 paedophiles in first year. Guardian [online] 12 July. Available from [accessed 14 July 2007]. McCartan, K. F. (2010) Media Constructions and reactions to, paedophilia in modern society. In Harrison, K. (Ed) Dealing with High-Risk Sex Offenders in the Community: risk management, treatment and social responsibilities, p 248-268. Willan: Cullompton. Miles. M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994) Qualitative Data Analysis: An expanded source book (2nd Ed). London: Sage. Morris. S. (2000) ‘Name and Shame’ court threat. Guardian [online] 31 July. Available from [accessed 24 June 2002]. National rollout of scheme to protect children. (2010) homeoffice [online] 2 August. Available from [accessed 23 august 2010]. National Probation Service (2006) Mappa 2006 Annual Reports Press Release. National Probation service [online]. Available from [accessed 12 December 2006].
Scourfield, J., & Walsh, I. (2003) Risk, reflexivity and social control in child protection: new times or the same old story? Critical Social Policy. 23(3) pp 398-420. Sexual Offences Act (2003). Sex Offenders Act (1997). Sex offender disclosure pilot. (2009) Scotland.gov.uk [online] 27 May. Available from [accessed 27 August 2010]. Silverman, J., and Wilson, D. (2002) Innocence Betrayed: Paedophilia, the media & society. Cambridge: Polity. Taylor, A. (2006) Council let paedos foster. The Sun [online] 22 June. Available from [accessed 1 august 2008]. Thomas, T. (2005) Sex Crime: Sex Offending and Society (2nd Ed). Cullompton: Willan. Travis, A. (2007) Home Office disowns plan for UK version of Megan’s Law. Guardian [online] 11 April 2007. Available from [Accessed Retrieved 11 April 2007].
Travis, A. (2010) Tories back plan to extend ‘Sarah’s law’ sex offenders checks. Guardian [online] 24 January. Available from [accessed 26 February 2010]. Table 1: A table showing the composition of the three different participant groups Group A Group B Group C Practitioners (13) Media (5) Academic ** (10) Police Participant[s] 1, 21, 22, 24 All are police officers working nationally (1), regionally (24) and locally (21 & 22) on sex crime/paedophile units. Editor Participant[s] 4, 23 The editors of two local/regional newspapers; one in Northern Ireland (23) and one in England (4) Criminologist Participant[s] 2, 9, 20 Lecturers in criminology at UK universities; researching sex crime/paedophilia, moral panics, the media and vigilantism (2, 9, 20). Probation Participant[s] 25, 26 Both worked in the same probation unit, dealing with child sex offenders in the community. Journalist Participant[s] 3, 12 They report for national broadsheets; with one also working in TV and doing research (3,) and the other also writing for some redtops (12). Psychologist Participant[s] 6, 8 Lecturers in psychology at UK (6) and Irish (8) universities; researching mainly paedophilia and the media to a lesser degree (6); as well as paedophilia and the internet (8). Therapists Participant[s] 5, 15, 16 Working in a high secure sex offender unit (15); with the other two (5, 16) having previous experience done so, but now working independently. TV Reporter Participant[s] 17 Reports for a national TV station [covering child sexual abuse i.e., Sarah Payne, Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman, and the Michael Jackson trail] Media Studies Participant[s] 10 A lecturer in media at a UK university; researching media and sex crime. Charities/NGO Participant[s] 11, 13, 27, 28* One participant works for national children’s charity (13), one for an international one (11) and two for a Sociology Participant[s] 7, 18, 19 Lecturers in sociology at UK universities; researching risk (18); childhood and child protection (18); and moral panics (8).