Citation

McCartan KF, Hoggett J, O'Sullivan J. J. Sex. Aggress. 2018; 24(1): 37-50.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1080/13552600.2017.1411641

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This paper examines police officer understandings of and attitudes to the sex offenders' register, Violent and Sex Offenders' Register (ViSOR) and Child Sexual Offender Disclosure Scheme (CSODS) in England and Wales - an under-researched area in the management of sexual offenders in the UK. This research is an adaptation of an American study utilising a mixed-methods approach, combining an online questionnaire survey (N = 227) with a series of semi-structured interviews (N = 27). The study found that police officers, irrespective of role, were generally supportive of the register, ViSOR and CSODS in principle, but they thought that logistics, practicalities, infrastructure, multi-agency collaboration and public understandings had problematic impacts on the scheme in practice. The participants believed that greater investment was needed in terms of time and resource to make the register, ViSOR and CSODS easier to use and access and thus fit for purpose.

Language: en

Keywords

Child Sexual Offender Disclosure Scheme; perpetrators of sexual harm; Sex offenders’ register; ViSOR