Failure to Protect: America's Sexual Predator Laws and the Rise of the Preventive State

by Eric S. Janus

Most crimes of sexual violence are committed by people known to the victim―acquaintances and family members. Yet politicians and the media overemphasize predatory strangers when legislating against and reporting on sexual violence. In this book, Eric S. Janus goes far beyond sensational headlines to expose the reality of the laws designed to prevent sexual crimes. He shows that "sexual predator" laws, which have intense public and political support, are counterproductive. Janus contends that aggressive measures such as civil commitment and Megan's law, which are designed to restrain sex offenders before they can commit another crime, are bad policy and do little to actually reduce sexual violence. Further, these new laws make use of approaches such as preventive detention and actuarial profiling that violate important principles of liberty. Janus argues that to prevent sexual violence, policymakers must address the deep-seated societal problems that allow it to flourish. In addition to criminal sanctions, he endorses the specific efforts of some advocates, organizations, and social scientists to stop sexual violence by, for example, taking steps to change the attitudes and behaviors of school-age children and adolescents, improving public education, and promoting community treatment and supervision of previous offenders. Janus also warns that the principles underlying the predator laws may be the early harbingers of a "preventive state" in which the government casts wide nets of surveillance and intervenes to curtail liberty before crimes of any type occur. More than a critique of the status quo, this book discusses serious alternatives and how best to overcome the political obstacles to achieving rational policy.

Genres: Nonfiction

200 pages, Hardcover

First published July 27, 2006

Reviews

[St. · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was handed this at work and asked to look it over. It quickly became obvious that it would be of no use whatsoever as far as work goes, because it's mostly about policy and social theory, not about the laws themselves. But I kept reading it anyway, since I found the policy/social theory stuff interesting. He goes into the expected due process/double jeopardy/Guantanamo aspects of civil commitments, but he also has an interesting insight into how the sex predator obsession of the past two decades has co-opted the previously developing narrative of sexual violence--how the feminist rape reforms of the 80s and 90s, which concentrated on expanding the legal boundaries of SV, removing some of the misogyny from the process, and directly addressing the societal attitudes that fostered SV, has since been overshadowed by sex predator obsession. This obsession has turned attention (and, more importantly, money) away from programs directed to prevent and deal with SV in its most common form (i.e., between sane people who know each other) to focus inordinately (and unintelligently, even on its own terms) on dealing after the fact with SV's most extreme and comparably rare form (violent psychotic recidivists).

So it's an okay book, if you're into this sort of thing. Although it's already outdated, because it came out just before Congress passed the Adam Walsh Act.

[P2p · Rating 5 out of 5]

Essential read for anyone who is concerned about the welfare of our children and the protection of women and children from sexual assault -- particularly those who are feminists.

This book will turn your assumptions upside down. Our predator laws are far less about keeping us safe and far more about assuring the reelection of those already in power.

Don't believe me? Read the book.