The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence

by Judith Levine, Erica Meiners

With analytical clarity and narrative force, The Feminist and the Sex Offendercontends with two problems that are typically siloed in the era of #MeToo and mass incarceration: sexual and gender violence, on the one hand, and the state’s unjust, ineffective, and soul-destroying response to it on the other. Is it possible to confront the culture of abuse? Is it possible to hold harm-doers accountable without recourse to a criminal justice system that redoubles injuries, fails survivors, and retrenches the conditions that made such abuse possible?

Drawing on interviews, extensive research, reportage, and history, The Feminist and the Sex Offender develops an intersectional feminist approach to ending sexual violence. It maps with considerable detail the unjust sex offender regime while highlighting the alternatives we urgently need.

Genres: Nonfiction, Feminism, Politics, Philosophy, Theory, Social Justice, Gender

225 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 23, 2020

Reviews

[Jaidee · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 "respectful, thoughtful, collaborative" stars !!

A ribbon of Excellence read for 2024

Thanx so much to Netgalley, the activist/authors and Verso Books. This was released April 2020 and I am providing an honest review.

The authors have presented their readers with a careful and compassionate guidebook on abolition feminism within a multiracial American context. Here is what they consider to be important for a more just, peaceful and equitable society and tentative plans/goals in how to achieve. The prime focus is on both sexual violence and sexual politics. Lots of helpful background information, community and case examples as well as thoughtful and compassionate rationales with plenty of room for collaboration and disagreement.

1. Abolish the Sex Offender Registry and Civil Commitment
2. De-medicalize Sexual Violence
3. Decriminalize Child and Teen Sexuality
4. Invest in Radical and Free Sex Education
5. Complicate Consent
6. Eroticize Safety, Proliferate Pleasures
7. Build and Sustain a Robust Welfare State, not a Carceral State
8. Think Intersectionally
9. Practice Transformative and Restorative Justice.
10. Embrace Abolition Feminism



Did I agree wholly with this book ? No I did not but that is irrelevant while we try and work together for a more just, equitable and peaceful society.

[Carrie Poppy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boy, it's rare that I find a book I liked this much -- and needed this much -- but have to knock off two whole stars for other reasons.

The good stuff:

- Extremely compelling case for why sex offender registries should be abolished, and sex offender civil commitment should be reserved for a precious few, if any. Well-sourced, clearly articulated, and deals well with objections.

- Written by two strong feminist scholars who know their shit. We need more of this kind of thought from the left. It make me nervous for the future when there are topics the Left needs to talk about, but all the writing about it is on the Right. This book will fill a gap.

- It's extremely intersectional, pointing out at every opportunity how this system -- like basically every punishement system in our country -- does more harm to non-white people than white people; demonizes queer sex more than straight sex and thus queer people more than straight people; and intensifies classism. All the while, it keeps sight of the central point: that sex offender registries should be abolished, and this would be the case even if everyone on them were rich, white, straight men.

The weaker stuff:

- Jargony. The authors throw out a lot of social justice rhetoric with which I am familiar, but I am not sure the average reader is. Maybe that's fine? Maybe they don't want the average reader? But it feels limited to a very small set of people who are already versed in a certain brand of 2020-on American leftist political rhetoric. I think probably some of this was a defensive strategy. I would be deeply afraid of being inaccurately labeled alt-right merely for talking about this issue, so proving at every turn that you really are a radical, prison-abolitionist feminist who wants to protect people from sexual violence might be a bit of self protection. Nevertheless, it makes for a sometimes bulky read.

- Lacks personal stories. There are lots of quotes from interviews, and compelling paragraph summaries about people who have been destroyed by this system, but pretty much no narrative, magazine-feature-style stories of people who have been hurt. Again, maybe this is by design. (The Internet loves these kinds of profiles because then they can go on a Google rampage and find some additional things to hate about the person being profiled), but for those of us really listening, I think we'd love to follow a couple characters more.

- Ending suggestions are vague and theoretical. Could be way more specific about what I can do.

- My biggest complaint: It is at times inconsistent or even sanctimonious about moderate reforms. For much of the book, the authors are hand-wringing about how to change the system without collaborating with the oppressor, without any particular awareness that the oppressor is us, and that sometimes you must collaborate with people who have made terrible decisions because (hey!) they are wanting to make a good decision right now. That's true whether the terrible decision was to rape someone, or to imprison someone. Our authors are willing to see the humanity in the sex offender, but not in the prison guard, and I think this is a mistake. We all need others to see our humanity, and show us how we can be better. A particular moment sticks out when the authors state that neither of them will volunteer with COSA (volunteer-led groups that help sex offenders re-enter society with support and accountability) because most (all?) of these groups also require volunteers to narc on their charge if he, say, drinks a beer (a lot of parolees are not allowed to drink). Of course, this is a silly rule and I wouldn't blame any volunteer who quietly chose not to follow it. But to refuse to actually do the boots on the ground help, and then turn that into a moral victory, is to me the worst kind of overwrought activism. The kind that celebrates inaction and dresses it up as action. That rewards writing blogs and twitter rants over filling out paperwork, when the oppressed need your action more than your theory. All that said, these authors are CLEARLY in it to win it, and I bet both of them spend a lot of time doing their part of the work. I sincerely don't doubt that. But a reader could absolutely walk away from this book thinking all she has to do is hate the system. To their credit, the authors do say (around 4/5ths of the way through the text) that they support abolition as well as reform, a moment so relieving to me, I wrote, "HEY! OK!" in the margin. Then they don't spend much time unpacking this idea.

In all, I am deeply grateful for this book, which is why I feel guilty giving it three stars! I am SO glad it was written and reckon I will be referencing it for a long time. It also took a tremendous amount of bravery to write and publish, as this is a topic Americans are extremely hesitant to talk about.

Five stars for bravery, that's for sure.

[zara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a solid book! The chapters are short, and it covers a lot of ground. I really appreciated the dialogue between the authors, too, as a way to capture and honor their different perspectives. Truth be told, I already agreed with just about everything in the book, and so my main question is: who’s the primary audience? For those of us who already identify as abolitionist feminists, organize with grassroots groups, and approach our work with an intersectional lens, everything that the authors propose makes perfect sense. For those who aren’t already bought in, the arguments don’t seem strong enough to sway them. In particular, many of us have consistently been sold out and marginalized by larger mainstream feminist and LGBTQ organizations. We are well aware that our movements would be stronger if these groups joined our fight, and yet the authors seem to minimize the factors that prevent larger organizations from being in solidarity with grassroots abolitionist feminist groups. Larger organizations are often aligning with powerful systems to secure short-term, short sighted wins. For as long as systems of oppression are in place, there will be people who seek to align with and benefit from those systems at the expense of people who are more marginalized. So, yes, I’d appreciate it if they’d join us, but I don’t see it happening, bringing me back to the question: who’s the book for? Beyond that, I would have liked to see some more recent examples of groups exploring community accountability and transformative justice. I appreciate the citations of Creative Interventions, Sista II Sista, and the Audre Lorde Project’s Safe OUTSide the System program, and I think we all still have so much to learn from these programs, but there are also new programs and projects that haven’t been mentioned in older books (whereas we can read about all of these programs in books like the rev starts at home and the INCITE! Anthology), so I was excited about a 2020 book that might reference some more recent projects and experiments working at the intersection of gendered violence and state violence — and disappointed not to learn about more recent efforts. Last, I fully support the abolition of the sex offender registry, as part of the abolition of all carceral systems, but I am not sold that this is a valuable starting point for abolitionists. It seems important that people who have caused sexual harm join and support survivor-centered, abolitionist feminist movements, knowing that they will benefit from the wins of these movements, rather than having a separate effort that centers their own experiences that will not necessarily do any good for survivors. We can support abolishing the registry without centering people who have caused sexual harm in our work.

[Anthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an important work, whether you agree or disagree with it. It’s important to understand the how and the why for the positions other self described radicals hold. The book serves as a great jumping off point into “abolitionist feminism” and their ideas of anti-carceral responses to harm. It provides great insights into the harm and violence that comes from carceral punishment, and the lack of evidence for "rehabilitation" and "reform" it brings.
It jumps into failed and misguided strategies and dives into the white feminist and professionalized takeover of the battered womens movement in the 70's-80's, which I thought was a fascinating look.
I think they could have done with going into a little more depth at solutions. It's clear they view that solution as a non carceral, feminist, “socialist” (in name) future. Their solutions are actually just social democratic reforms to create a self acknowledged “welfare state.”
It spends considerable time discussing the deeply problematic nature of the Sex offender registry. Judith and Erica do a pretty thorough job examining and analyzing it's largely ineffective nature, and also laying the foundation for how it perpetuates harm. It also provides some more concrete examples of coalition building and engaging in restorative and transformative justice. They do however idealize this process quite a bit however. They don't really address the reality that some victim/survivors do not want to engage in a restorative or transformative justice process. Also glossing over the reality of harm doers not wanting to engage in that process either. Ignoring or glossing over these fairly common barriers in no way negates the need to push for restorative/transformative processes, but I believe their failure to engage in many objective realities that exist in the present day, highlights their idealism. This idealism is why this book and the path they believe we should take to achieve abolition is one that will only ever really be effective on an extremely localized scale. Which is ok when we're discussing interpersonal harm within our radical movements or organizations. But it is an ineffective analysis of a global societal structure of violence that exists as a process within countless other processes of capitalist state violence.

I’ve read this book twice now. 2nd time through I was able to read this much more objectively. I’ve got to say, this book, specifically is Parts 2-3 are littered with strawman arguments to justify their points. Judith in particular, ventures off into what myself and my political education group felt was r*pe apologism, trivializing and downplaying abuse very regularly, as well as pretty blatant tokenization when it was convenient for their argument.
A Google search of many of the stories they write about very clearly show that the authors misrepresent the facts in the anecdotes they use within their book. If they truly believe in the validity of the argument they’ve presented, why manufacture a false narrative about a story about sexual abuse that anyone could just Google and realize the authors leave out very key pieces to the stories they present? The only reason for leaving out key details is to win readers over. The problem is, they do this multiple times, and puts their standing pretty firmly out of “good faith” territory.

The primary problem with the analysis in this book (though it does effectively assess the violence and abuse inherent to the state and the prison system) stems from its foundational epistemology. The authors rely on the false dichotomy of “abolition” vs “carceral feminism” that radical liberal academics tend to lean so heavily on.
It creates a binary choice between “abolition” or “carcerality,” when the binary it presents is effectively rooted in no material understanding of the world, let alone a dialectical one. Because this false dichotomy is their basis for understanding and analyzing the issues within this book, and to a larger degree, feminism and gendered violence as a whole. They tend to take very disturbing lines and stances on sexual abuse out of pure necessity of needing to align with their own very idealistic conception of “abolition” as a metaphysical absolute, rather than a dialectical process within the frame work of a social structure controlled by Imperialist hegemony .

Their primary concerns do not appear to be abuse or transformative justice, rather, it’s internalized guilt, and being terrified of being perceived as “carceral.” This is ever present in Part 3, where they happily discuss building coalitions with extremely reactionary right wing groups that are either openly "anti-feminist" or worse. Yet they navel gaze about refusing to engage with radical left orgs who may hold a slightly different political line than them simply because the material reality means that some groups unfortunately engage with the state in some small manner. This is peak liberal idealism. The authors are willing to accept that processes and people are imperfect.... when it is convenient to their argument. They however do not give that same courtesy to radicals on the left that they disagree with. Again, it's seeped in idealism, also a misunderstanding of what the state is.
The theme of the book is "ending state violence." However, their narrow definition of "the state" can essentially be chalked up to "when the government does stuff." Their coalition building is happy to build bridges with right wing churches, though Judith and Erica seem completely ignorant to the fact that the "state" encompasses more than simply an official governing body, rather it is an organ of class rule. In the united states specifically, the Christian Church is an organ of that very same state in which they seek to end harm from (this is not a moral judgement on individual Christians, simply an objective observation of the state). So how can they promote engaging with the state (the church in this case) in their restorative processes while strawmanning every radical leftist who they stamp as "carceral" because they engage with the state in either a minor instance, or by mere happenstance. This logic has zero material analysis whatsoever and is firmly rooted in an idealistic false dichotomy of "abolition vs carceral."

There is a correct and valid political line within the messaging of the book, which is that the prison industrial complex is racist, violent, misogynistic, transphobic and so on, but this is because the state is all of those things. The prison system does not exist isolated from the rest of the processes of the world. The US prison system is an arm of the settler-colonial and capitalist ruling class state. "Abolition" is not possible while that state remains intact. Judith and Erica seem to be of the belief that good intentions, nice language and academia can reform the state into a "welfare state" which they incorrectly identify as socialism. A welfare state is not built on kinship, decolonization or collective healing and building of dual power to the most oppressed people. It is a system that fundamentally requires Imperialism, ie capitalist exploitation via capital extraction of countries in the Global South. Norway, Denmark, Sweden are all prime examples of centuries of colonial resource extraction and present day imperialism funding the so called "Welfare State" that the authors strive for.
What appears to be pretty unnecessary and irrelevant to the argument of humanizing people who commit acts of sexual violence is the way they downplay and trivialize various forms of sexual violence. I don’t need to read Judith and Erica pulling a “well actually” about child porn…. It “isn’t as big of a problem as the state wants you to think.” And “fantasizing about children’s bodies isn’t the problem.” They strawman this argument and focus on the large number of men in prison for producing and watching recorded sexual violence against children. But they focus on these types of numbers while ignoring how most instances of sexual violence are not reported and are not subject to State violence in any way. Because their argument is that the State makes sexual violence seem worse than it is. Which is true in some contexts, certainly with the states instance on the racialized nature and criminalization of Black Men for example. This point can be true without needing to intentionally downplay pedophilia and the "true numbers" of sexual violence against children. Their analysis in this case of white innocence of children that is not granted to Black and Brown children is unequivocally correct. But again, this can be true with trying to convince it's readers that child porn really isn't a big of an issue as we think, because the lies.

In several cases in order to make their points, they appear to actually disregard patriarchy as a structure of violence entirely. Whereas the argument they present could only be true if society were egalitarian. This moving of goalposts to defend their flimsy trivialization of sexual violence is a common theme of the book.
I have a lot of other gripes with their analysis of very real and valid issues that exist. But like many of their arguments, they use “capitalism” as a convenient argument but really provide no in depth analysis. A theme my study group noticed was that they consistently disprove their own points in the same paragraph and remain completely unaware they’ve done so. Again, this is common of radical academics, critique without real tangible solutions within a process of movement and development. They describe the inherent physical and economic exploitation inherent to capitalism. This analysis is correct, they however completely fail to apply this analysis to any of their arguments whatsoever. In describing how violent and exploitative capitalism is, they in the same breath make the argument that labor within capitalism is not inherently economically coercive. This fundamentally and objectively disregards the laws of capitalism, as well as their own argument.

This book in my opinion is dangerous for anyone who might feel like more of a “beginner” to radical thought or theory. As we all have a tendency to be less critical and provide less objective analysis within a defined framework in our beginners stage. For this reason, very often we take radical authors at their word, and accept what we're given without ruthlessly critiquing and investigating everything we encounter.

I do always suggest reading texts you don’t agree with (though I expected to really like this, and I did the first time I read it) because it’s important to understand why you disagree with it, rather than simply because someone told you to. But mostly, things we disagree with arent 100% incorrect. There are valuable truths to take from this book, but there’s also a lot of bs that could be hard to decipher if you’re not trying to investigate and be critical.

Abolition is a process, and an imperfect one at that. One that cannot objectively be fully realized until the complete dismantling of Colonialism, Imperialism and capitalism entirely. It is not a black and white framework that can be idealized into “this action is either carceral or abolitionist.” This idealism is the fatal flaw at the core of this books framework.

Lastly, if you want a good accessible starting off point into feminist analysis from a third world revolutionary woman, rather than white academics idealizing struggle from their University offices.
I highly recommend checking out Anuradha Ghandy “Philosophical Trends in the Feminist Movement.” It’s short and an easy read. It’s available free online, and I bought my physical copy brand new for $6 and learned 20x more than I did with this book.

[Breanna Wichmann · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is a deeply harmful, disingenuous, and poorly cited text. It frequently blames victims and their families for perpetrators that “suffer” due to their relentless, silly demands for justice and accountability. They focus on prison abolishment while completely ignoring that victims would want some sort of protection against the violence perpetrated on them being repeated against someone else. These authors blame the plight of SOs on feminism throughout the majority of the book; in fact, the only females they seem to support are the white middle class mothers that have formed political groups against sex offender registries, because their “innocent” tiny baby boys “were ‘just’ convicted of child pornography”. They hold offenders completely innocent against their current position as registered offenders, even going to the length of defending men that are registered and still contacting young boys on social media. They state that VAWA and efforts to stop sexual harassment in the work place is “too much litigation” and “doesn’t actually change the work place environment”. They don’t believe in age of consent, are skeptical of child pornography’s harm, and seem to think that infecting someone with HIV is not something worth punishing someone for. This is a completely tone deaf and honestly, totally fucking stupid book and if the authors put a shred of the effort they put towards defending sexual perpetrators towards protecting VICTIMS, they might actually create something worth reading. There’s literally a chapter titled “Real” Guilt and the Trouble with Innocence—uhhhhhm?

Here are some actual quotes from these twacks:
•“Many women, including queers, benefit from patriarchy”
•“in dozens of countries, with the United States in the lead, conviction for HIV nondisclosure and transmission—a model for stealthing and equally unprovable—has turned lovers into sex offenders”
•”we reject the dichotomy of perpetrator and victim. When rape or abuse is done, there is almost always enough trauma to go around, in the childhoods and adult lives of both harmed and harm-doer”
•”Child porn law sends the message that any gaze at a child’s body is predation. Our anxieties about child sexuality, reified in statute, transform every adult into a voyeur and every child’s body into a potential crime scene”

[Tess · Rating 1 out of 5]

They really should have called this book “We Hate Actual Feminism: A Manifesto in Rape Apology”. I am so, so, SO unbelievably disappointed in the complete and utter disregard the authors show for survivors, and I’m disgusted beyond belief that I actually paid money for this hunk of bullshit. The authors waste so much time creating false dichotomies to underpin poorly thought out straw-man arguments.

For example: “Sexual and gender violence is the problem, not fantasizing about children’s bodies…” (68).

Um, I’m sorry, maybe both are a problem? Two things can be real. This is a shameful misrepresentation of abolitionism, justice, and a careless treatment of its intersection with sexual violence. If I could give this book zero stars, I would. I’m sad that I’ll never get back the time I wasted reading this book, as I could have put it toward a much more enjoyable activity such as gouging my eyes out with a rusty spoon.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this hopelessly utopian. The authors, who are feminists, want "accountability without punishment" for sex crimes perpetrators. It's unclear how that would work, why we should want it, and how crime victims would attain a semblance of justice. Because we have a system of mass incarceration, they seem to be arguing, which disproportionately affects people of color, we need to scrap prisons completely.

I could probably be persuaded of some of their ideas, such as abolishing sex offender registries. But I could not get on board with two academics using the slang term "convos" in an academic book. When did everyone start using this horrible abbreviation?

[lindsi · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was fine, just kinda basic and focused on surface-level stuff. i found myself feeling really frustrated with how much it jumped around from microtopic to topic instead of spending time on a thoughtful, in-depth framework. it felt more like a collection of very brief internet articles than an academic work. most disappointingly, it didn’t improve my understanding of the topic or provide any practical advice for how to deal with sexual harm in your own community or social sphere unless you already have access to one of the few orgs they name dropped (which were almost exclusively located in the northeast). i’m left wondering who this book is for — i guess liberals who are unconvinced or on the fence about prison abolition? — because it definitely doesn’t read like something from a putatively socialist publishing house.

[Adora · Rating 4 out of 5]

Satisfactorily answered a question that's been knocking around my head for a long time, namely "I'm down with taking down the carceral state but what do we do with the rapists?" The language is concise and easy to follow. I appreciate their inclusion of case studies and various community-based groups practicing transformative justice. I think both authors make (correct, in my case) assumptions about their readers' existing politics, meaning that this may be a harder text to swallow for someone who espouses more conservative views about sexual activity, buys into a retributive model of justice, or isn't already a socialist.

[ash | songsforafuturepoet · Rating 4 out of 5]

After I read this, I took a week to think about it, and had a long chat (veered away from our intended meeting) with my colleague on the work we are doing. Levine and Meiners intended for this book to start conversations about the problem of dealing with the problem of sexual violence, and start one we did, so kudos to that.

The Feminist and the Sex Offender lays out the context by describing two problems: the problem of sexual harm and the problem of how we are dealing with sexual harm (ie. through state violence and oppressive, patriarchal, and racist systems). This book focuses on the second problem.

How to read this book:

Levine and Meiners advocate for using an intersectional, abolitionist feminist lens to approach this discussion. It might be helpful for readers to already have some background of this. I'm seeing other reviews saying they read this book with a question in mind - mine was, "While supporting survivors of sexual harm, what can we do about people who cause harm?" It was helpful for me to focus on what I wanted to take away from their book, which covers the issue in various angles and for a number of vested groups.

The good:

Levine and Meiner are strongly grounded in the anti-violence lens and doesn't lose sight of it while covering a lot of ground, that of which is honestly complex, nuanced, and difficult to talk about. The book is covered in three parts - describing the problem, describing what they call 'fractured resistance', and a call for a truly anti-violent way to confront sexual harm.

They cover the ways the punitive state currently treats sex offenders (their word for people who cause harm) in the US, and how it causes further harm, both to survivors (as the regime doesn't focus on rehabilitation and restoration for the survivors) and to the sex offenders, the latter in ways that are dehumanising and terribly violent.

They call for us to examine why we want to put sex offenders through an oppressive, racist regime that more often that not serves to perpetuate the same underlying ideologies that sexual violence stems from - patriarchal ideals, toxic masculinity, violence as a way to control, and more.

They also make the very good point that the state can criminalise certain acts when it is debatable if they are sexual crimes. For example, youths in consensual relationships, gay sex (377A in Singapore, anyone), possessing photos of your partners. Laws can also discriminate against certain people, such as HIV positive people and queer people, and fail to account for or protect vulnerable groups, such as sex workers or people with special needs.

"Where the nation puts its money is the concrete expression of its priorities. Its economic system enacts its values: capitalism worships profit, which means the exploitation of the many for the benefit of the few. Neoliberalism, the religious belief that the marketplace solves every problem, abandons all responsibility to those left behind in brutal twenty-first-century capitalism. US capitalism was born in genocide, dispossession, and slavery. White supremacism, including the criminalisation and economic exclusion of nonwhite people, is intrinsic to the enduring power of the US economy; the two cannot be entangled."

The second part of the book is where it made me think. They provided some insight into how different advocacy groups come with different goals and often doesn’t take into account the overarching problem of systemic oppression, and as a result, work often gets nowhere. This is the fractured resistance. People naturally wish to work on issues closer to them, and the mothers of sex offenders who 'hates feminism' understandably would be hard pressed to work with survivors' advocates, especially if they are carceral feminists who advocates for heaver laws and more state involvement in private lives. (To be clear, both groups are working with flawed ideologies).

The last part for the book lists 10 ways we can confront both sexual and state harm with things such as demedicalising sexual violence, and having a nuanced, gender-informed understanding of consent. I found this inspiring to read and it made me feel invigorated, thinking of so many possibilities that we can make this better.

What can be better:

Levine and Meiners brought up three types of harm in this book: sexual harm that already happened, future harm that could happen to others by the sex offender, and harm caused to the sex offender (either through punitive laws or other discriminations, like against gay men). Understandably, they spent a lot more time talking about the last two, but I find that they have neglected the first type of harm, which is extremely important to make this conversation whole.

They have not fully addressed the prevalence and depth of harm caused to survivors. Sexual harm, a potentially traumatising act, can cause both acute and long-lasting ripples to a survivor's psychological and physical health. Society still currently punishes survivors just for being survivors, and - I'd imagine - in magnitudes larger than the punishments that come with perpetuating sexual harm especially when the majority of incidents go unreported. You can experience social consequences, consequences to your livelihood, financial consequences, many creative ways you can be re-traumatised by people around you who insist on victim shaming, taking away your autonomy, or straight up not believing you, and actual threat of violence not just from the perpetrator but also from people around you just for sharing that you've gone through sexual violence. And not to mention the loss of potential and right of someone to live a violence-free life.

Exploring the problem of sexual violence will allow readers to fully understand both types of harm, especially since their entire premise is that the solutions to these two problems often are in conflict with each other. The first step to rectify that is to have 'both sides' understand each other's problem, is it not?

Instead, I found peppered throughout the book strange remarks about sexual harm itself. In one case study, they said the young person could have 'ghosted' the older boy who was charged with grooming him (to prevent further harm from happening to him). That's not how grooming works... they also keep listing examples of sexual crimes in a way that insinuates something but not really saying it. For example, they compared a child playing doctor to a child sexually coercing another child without really saying what they are comparing. To me, it seems like they are trying to say one act is 'lesser' than the other - maybe so, but not necessarily to the survivor.

There were also extreme examples of harm towards 'sex offenders' the book, like a nine year old who was charged and labelled a budding sex offender, and a bill that proposed to list people over 60 as people who cannot consent to sexual intimacy and can potentially charge partners for engaging in sex (to be fair, that's ridiculous). Perhaps this is a US problem but I find myself constantly asking what’s the prevalence and impact of the legal regime against sex offenders and those deemed to be 'sex offenders'? How does it compare to the prevalence and impact of sexual harm itself? I feel that this can be touched upon more.

I also wonder if they had intended to discuss the issue of sexual harm, would the act of working on it change the way they structure some parts of their argument. I don't currently have any thoughts on how it might possibly look like but it would be interesting to think about.

Conclusion:

I still took away many helpful new perspectives despite the disappointment I felt towards their lack of addressing the problem of sexual harm. Overall, the key message was important to take away - to tackle sexual harm at its roots, we should adopt an intersectional, abolitionist, feminist stance, and work towards anti-violence for everyone.

[Dana · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is both important and deeply flawed. I respect the authors’ attempt at tackling a difficult and incredibly emotionally charged topic, but the logical inconsistencies and, frankly, frightening lack of understanding of child development undermined the overall argument.

The strongest part of this book is the analysis of the sex offender registry and its overall ineffectiveness at preventing sexual harm. As someone who is relatively new to in depth structural analysis, this book genuinely made me question my biases towards the registry and come to a more nuanced understanding of the sex offender legal regime as a whole. The parts of the argument that draw from abolitionist arguments are certainly the strongest.

My major problem with this book is its overall lack of specific suggestions for solutions and its complete disregard for child development. I went into this desperately hoping for concrete, practical steps to create community-based solutions to prevent and address sexual harm. Part of my disappointment may be my fault for expecting something the book didn’t explicitly advertise, but it was disheartening that even in the chapter dedicated to solutions, each suggestion was incredibly vague. Nothing felt actionable or meaningful.

As a health care provider and someone with fairly extensive knowledge in childhood development, I was deeply unsettled by the arguments in this book that involved childhood sexuality. While children should absolutely be provided *developmentally appropriate* sex education, the notion that we should decriminalize child sexuality was honestly frightening. The example the authors provided was Dutch law legalizing sex between adolescents between 12-16, including with people above the age of majority, while allowing children who felt they were being exploited to report it. I was amazed that there was no critical lens brought into this example to note the difficulty in fully grown adults to recognize exploitation, let alone children with brains that are literally not fully developed. How can we expect a 12 year old to be able to navigate the incredibly complex emotional landscape of consenting to sex, fully understanding consent, and recognizing abuse or exploitation, especially by someone significantly older? At best, the example was sloppy, at worst, it was dangerous.

Also troubling was the emphasis the authors seemed to place on humanizing harm doers at all costs, while very rarely acknowledging the degree of the harm. There were very few instances where the authors explicitly state that sexual violence is a real problem and that it is deeply traumatizing for those who experience it. Rather, they emphasized many times that those who commit sexual harm are often abused themselves, and that those who experience harm have also caused it. This book really did not feel like it was truly grounded in a genuine acknowledgment of the degree of trauma that sexual harm can cause.

I unfortunately also have to question the depth of research in certain topics in this book. To write this from a feminist perspective AND uncritically include Laci Green as an example of online sex education betrayed either ignorance or sloppy researching.

Overall, I respect what the authors here were attempting, but the general tone of minimizing the experience of those who have been harmed in favor of the humanity of those who perpetuate harm left a very sour taste in my mouth.

[seren✨ starrybooker]

It would feel strange to give a book like this a star-rating, so I’m just going to write down my thoughts instead.

This was a great book, and one I highly recommend to anyone interested in the abolitionist movement. That being said, it definitely shouldn’t be your introduction to abolitionist politics (there are great articles across the internet, and the free pdf of Are Prisons Obsolete? is pretty easy to find).

It’s a really challenging read in lots of different ways, which is to be expected from a book that deals with the topic of sexual violence. I don’t agree with all of their stances, but I enjoyed it regardless - it’s nice to read a leftist text that I’m not immediately nodding along to and is instead actively pushing my ideas and political boundaries.

It’s also a book that’s interested in solutions alongside the problems it presents. The section on restorative and transformative justice (and the difference between the two) was particularly great, and it ends with a manifesto that clearly sums up the points they build to throughout the book.

While I found some of their points difficult to swallow, I recognise that theirs is a standpoint built on radical empathy, and I respect the vision of the society they wish to see. You can’t call for an end on policing and prisons without taking sex offenders into account, and this book does just that.

[Cynthia · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was very bad and problematic, and I say this as someone who appreciates prison abolition and transformative justice ideas. But this is, in no order, anecdotal, condescending, superficial, unnuanced, disconnected from realities. The authors harp on the need to look at the ecosystem of oppressions and policing while they keep on talking about sexual crimes and sex offenders in a siloed manner. They also discuss minoritized communities in a n unnuanced, almost dogmatic manner (what some often stereotype as "woke/PC" – e.g., defending gay men risking transmitting HIV to a partner because HIV is manageable now with treatment, not to mention that the vast majority of people who have HIV in the world are women in a relationship with a man). And then, they rely on stats (often implied rather than stated – sure makes it easier) whenever it suits them and talk about how stats mean nothing when they don't. I agree that stats can be used to say anything so we should always take them with a grain of salt, but this requires to explain the context surrounding them rather than cherrypicking them to suit one's argument.

Perhaps the most problematic part, because they spend so much time on it and come back to it time and time again, was the weird framing surrounding child porn and the sexualization of children and fantasizing about children's bodies. While I agree that our societies construct the pure, innocent, unsexual child to be protected and that children of an age should be allowed to explore their bodies (in as safe a manner as we can support), the authors' arguments repeatedly fail to bring in any nuance and are even ambiguous about who we are talking about (e.g., adults sexualizing children or children exploring together) and about what we are talking about (e.g., children reproducing harm onto each other or aiming to create a supportive safe culture for children to explore).

[Amanie Johal · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars

Very conflicting feelings on this one.

I want to first acknowledge that I have never experienced sexual violence, so my experience with this book is a result of that; there are passages in this book that made deeply uncomfortable because they seemed to downplay sexual harm, and I'm not sure how these passages would affect someone who had experienced the same sexual harm.

After reading this, I can definitely understand how knowing someone is a sex offender is actually entirely unhelpful because even though our minds automatically jump to "rapist/pedophile", sex offense laws are so expansive and vary so much between states that an individual could end up on the registry for much less heinous "crimes"; for example, being on the streets as a homeless youth and using the buddy system to keep you and your friend safe as you both perform sex work, but getting charged with sex trafficking a minor because you are 17 (age of majority) while your friend is 16 (a minor) (paraphrased from chapter 11).

Having read some abolitionist works, I understand how defunding the police and prisons and redirecting those funds towards community support and social services to reduce poverty will reduce crimes like burglary and domestic violence, but I was never able to make the logical leap for pedophiles and rapists. After reading this, I have a vague notion of how abolition could reduce sexual harm (mostly thanks to the overlap with why abolition works for non-sex crimes) but I still have many questions. I'm not necessarily expecting any one abolitionist work to assuage all my fears and doubts (Derecka Purnell's book in particular helped me see that a totally abolitionist world is an idea-in-progress that's constantly evolving, not a fully-realized stagnant ideal), but I wish there had been a bit more discussion on exactly how an abolitionist lens would support victims and perpetrators; this book seemed largely to ignore the impact of sexual harm on victims and instead focused primarily on how the carceral state harms offenders. I'm guessing that because there isn't a lot of left-wing literature focused on offenders in a non-accusatory manner, the authors let the victim's impact fall by the wayside, but it unfortunately makes the text comes across as very dismissing of victims in order to trumpet the plight of sex offenders.

Luckily, the authors had the following exchanges (I copied snippets only) when discussing "Angela", someone who performs restorative justice at a community justice center but refuses to work with sex offenders because of her own abuse as a child:

Erica: "I get where Angela is coming from. And the work is not to persuade her."
Judith: "'I believe in restorative justice -- except for my rapist.' Totally understandable."
Erica: "Angela doesn't have to be the one to deal with the [sex offenders]. Just like the work to challenge white supremacy does not have to be done by every person of colour...So for someone who has experienced sexual violence, maybe it's not their frontline collective actions to be working for fairness of SOs."
Judith: "[Angela] believes SOs deserve rights. She believes they're redeemable...She just personally cannot face these guys."

I see many reviews pointing out how little the authors seem to care about the victims (and especially with how they sometimes downplay certain forms of sexual harm like rape and child pornography) to the point that it seems like victim-blaming, but I think the authors recognize that this (meaning, sex offender rights) is a controversial subject already so they lean into the uncomfortableness of it instead of trying to soften their politics. Is it effective? Maybe, maybe not. It's certainly very radical, but I know that I could never recommend this book to anyone who wasn't already on the path to abolitionist thinking because the passages downplaying the prevalence of child pornography and child sexual abuse are going to be impossible to get on board with for the average citizen.

I guess I'm personally glad that they chose such an unambiguous approach for talking about registrants' rights (the authors' preferred nomenclature) because it certainly left me a lot to think about and wanting to pursue more knowledge, even if it limits the audience for this text in particular.

[Morgan M. Page · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Harm, Ending State Violence takes aim at one of the most difficult questions lobbed at prison abolitionists: "but what about the sex offenders?" In a culture that has so deeply reviled sex offences (despite, as feminists have long since revealed, done little to actually prevent or respond to instances of sexual harm), it's quite bold to write a book about it. Committed abolitions will already be familiar with and likely agree with much of what this book says. But, as Leila wrote in her review, the arguments made felt flimsy and undercooked. It's a short book, which makes it accessible to a lot of readers, but its shortness does a disservice to its content. It could've used at least an extra third to do justice to many of the authors' positions. So while I liked the book and think it is a necessary intervention in thinking about abolition and sexual violence, I'd be hard-pressed to recommend it to anyone who wasn't already strongly familiar with prison abolition feminism. I do look forward to reading more of both authors' work.

[doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was at first on board with the carceral feminism critique and advocacy for abolition and restorative Justice but there are ways to do so without casting doubt on claims of abuse and assault. A criticism of the state does not need to rest on invalidating the reality of those it tries (and fails) to serve. Furthermore the sensationalistic comparisons don’t actually do much but appeal to my already cynical side and stating “libertarian think tank” actually makes me recoil.

That said i dunno, some good points and ideas about the current system and statistics regarding those it exists for.

[Marina Coco · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es un texto extraordinario. Probablemente para aquellas que estén familiarizadas con los conceptos del abolicionismo del estado carcelario, la justicia reparadora y la interseccionalidad no diga nada nuevo, pero hace un trabajo de conectar los puntos, resumir, referenciar y enfatizar que me ha parecido completamente imprescindible. Muy muy contenta.

[Alex · Rating 1 out of 5]

Anti-feminist garbage written by someone who clearly has more empathy for white men who sexually abuse children than with their victims. Don't waste your time with this dishonestly argued pedophile apologism.

[Kate · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Where does [sharing] information end and [seeking] revenge start? Where does demanding accountability become vigilantism?”

This book is really solid, and it challenged my own biases about people who have caused sexual harm — I was already an abolitionist, and this pushed me even further. I think everyone should read this! Especially if the topic makes you raise an eyebrow in apprehension. It is so intersectional and thorough.

I disagree with other reviews saying they didn’t provide concrete enough solutions. The authors very explicitly laid out ways of moving forward: abolishing the sex offender registry, engaging in transformative justice, pushing for comprehensive sex education for youth, rejecting the dichotomous model of consent, and many more. They provided a LOT of supporting evidence and case studies to support their points. I definitely agreed with Erica way more than I agreed with Judith when they inserted dialogue of their debates. But regardless, they both have valuable insights to offer.


“People who fight against prisons must also embrace the abolition of gender policing.” (This is paraphrased from Angela Davis’ 2013 UChicago talk)

“It is sometimes hard to proclaim that pleasure is no less worthy of our passionate advocacy than safety….it is not just in shared principles and vision that movements for justice cohere, and it’s not only through struggle that they progress.”

[Scott · Rating 1 out of 5]

nearly had to abandon this when the authors dismissed a convicted predator texting a teenager with "Anyway, he lives hundreds of miles away".

[rex · Rating 1 out of 5]

You can discuss non-carceral options for sex offenders without downplaying their effects and dismissing and discrediting survivors. I put this book down for good after the authors attempted to handwave away a repeat child molester being caught grooming another victim, sneerily insisting that since the majority of contact was over the phone, if the child was so upset, he "could have just ghosted [the adult sex offender grooming him]".

Fucking revolting.

[Erin S · Rating 3 out of 5]

While this book provided me with new perspectives and taught me about a topic I’ve had difficulty with, it didn’t answer most of the questions I had about alternatives to incarceration, especially when it comes to curtailing the most heinous of sex crimes.

I’m still not convinced we can abolish prisons or SORN unless we can present a plausible, organized, and more effective alternative- something this text does not provide despite its titular claim. I certainly expected more from the last part, which was a bit hasty and scattered.

That being said, the book does shed light on many topics we, as a society, feel uncomfortable addressing and provides a wealth of supporting data. I also appreciated the intermittent dialogues between Erica and Judith, as they addressed some common concerns.

Disclaimer: I am new to abolitionist discourse, so perhaps I’m not the intended audience, but I still wish I could have gained a more comprehensive view of the world abolitionist feminists envision. I’m open to reading more abolitionist texts, despite my initial skepticism.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

I appreciate the authors' work and agree with the arguments. However, I think the arguments could have been made better and more intentionally. For example, I really disliked the discussion about restorative justice, as it is a very white-washed version of a practice and way of living that was appropriated from Indigenous communities who still use these practices today. The authors critique the fact that RJ can be appropriated by the carceral state, not taking into account that Indigenous peoples never intended to be used that way because traditional Indigenous ways of living are inherently non-carceral. I just wish there was more nuance there, and in many of the other sections of the book. Overall, it was very clear, from the introduction and onward, that this book was written by white women. Because of this, I saw a lot of blind spots within the text that I wish weren't there. Still, I appreciate the task it sought to accomplish.

[cab · Rating 3 out of 5]

The argument and facts presented itself are fine and will inspire reflection in most (the authors themselves situate the book during the current climate of #MeToo in universities, and the introduction of Title IX for universities, along with a broader interest in restorative and transformative justice), and I think contributes to an incredibly important and relevant conversation about rehabilitating and providing space for harm-doers to reflect and re-integrate back into society.

My issue with the book is mostly with its stylistic organization.

I feel the chapters could be organized better and neater, making the main thesis easier to track and follow. The authors cover a lot of ground, but the chapters are not organized very well or coherently, often taking detours or tangents which could have been avoided with better planning or editing. I feel like I learnt important facts and tidbits here and there about abolition and the realities of people with SO convictions, but the intricacies of the authors’ arguments (beyond the broadest strokes of “people with SO convictions deserve rights and protections, first of all starting with abolishing the SO registry”) were lost on me because of a rather haphazard organization, which felt like the authors constantly circling around a few broad points but never homing in precisely on the arguments itself. Surely there must be a better way to more coherently present concrete arguments on reinstating the rights and protections of people with SO convictions.

The book is clearly meant for laypersons not familiar to the topic (what with the use of short chapters and primers/introductory chapters to things like SW and restorative/transformative justice), yet uses so many acronyms that it gets incredibly jarring to read at times, because the reader is Literally A Layperson and hasn’t had the chance to memorise the names of all the different groups hurled at one at lightning speed, like. just say Sista II Sista or Community United Against Violence instead of SIIS or CUAV like. All these acronyms just start blurring into one indistinct blob after a while and it’s really counter-intuitive for the reader, especially when the approaches of specific groups are juxtaposed against each other but I can barely remember what VAWA or FRRC or UCCCA or HRDC or SLRP or NARSOL or RSOL or WAR or ACSOL or SOSEN or CYRR or COSA is, because I’ve just encountered these names for the first time. This isn’t an academic paper for people familiar with the subject, this is reading that people are squeezing in during transit to work. These abbreviations were often jarring and really disrupted the reading experience, so I have to point it out. (It also peeved me that the writers chose to abbreviate transformative and restorative justice as TJ and RJ, but that’s neither here nor there.)

[Nicolas Lontel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un moyen/court essai sur l'abolitionnisme pénal avec comme intérêt de problématique principal les délinquants sexuels (de tous les ordres), c'est évidemment des questions souvent très touchy comme le soulève les autrices à de nombreuses reprises, mais je pense que l'ensemble soutient bien leur thèse comme quoi les "pires" délinquants sexuels servent de boucs émissaires pour renforcer des peines, vendre le projet d'une institution carcérale complètement déshumanisante et comment ces "délinquants" servent bien une panique morale montée en épingle. Ces délinquants servent aussi, évidemment, à attaquer les minorités LGBTQ plus facilement en laissant une certaine acceptabilité sociale dans un cas, mais pas dans l'autre.

Toutefois, les personnes déjà abolitionnistes de prisons n'apprendront pas grand chose et la force des arguments (ou les alternatives au système actuel) n'est pas très fort (comme les souligne bien d'autres critiques ici) pour convaincre de nouvelles personnes. Le recours à l'anecdote plutôt qu'aux statistiques (bien qu'elles restent présente) est plutôt commune bien qu'une bonne bibliographie est fournie avec un petit appareil de note. Les explications historiques de tel phénomène ou telle loi abonde toutefois et apporte un éclairage excessivement intéressant sur plusieurs aspects de l'essai et offre un contexte très intéressant pour la compréhension des enjeux. On a l'impression d'avoir un peu plus un cumulatif des notes des deux autrices mis proprement en livre plutôt qu'une réelle critique tranchante.

Dans l'ensemble, c'est plutôt bon, j'étais plutôt d'accord tout le long (sauf à une reprise), mais je suis déjà dans les personnes convaincues. Je pense que l'essai manquait peut-être un peu de mordant ou d'un peu plus d'approfondissement pour que ça vienne plus me chercher. Après, ça a des aspects très généralistes aussi: le chapitre 4 avec ses "10 avenues pour confronter les violences sexuelles, abolir la violence d'état et transformer nos communautés" où chaque point est expliqué en deux pages est définitivement plus de l'ordre du listicle un peu détaillé que de l'essai académique [ce n'est pas un jugement sur la forme ici, les deux ciblent deux publics différents].

[M · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book deserves to be in criminal justice curriculas around the country. In depth and well-researched while still offering a refreshing perspective of humanity, The Feminist and the Sex Offender takes decades of thorough research and social interactions and packages it into a supremely palatable and entertaining read. A must-read for self-confessed true crime junkies.

[Noah Tiegs · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good! Lots of stuff I already knew and thought about, but brought up some more interesting points. Wonderful!

[Grace! · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked that they included actions at the end

[winnie · Rating 1 out of 5]

bravely, someone asks: Hasn't Anyone Ever Thought of the Rapists?

easily going to be my most hated read of 2025. before getting into anything else, i have to bring up the authors misrepresentation of a quote. in discussing the tensions between the 70s/80s black liberation and feminist movements, they cite Essie Green Williams saying: “Trying to deal with the rape issue when there are so many other issues of survival in the Black community—it becomes a matter of priorities.” here, they're clearly implying black feminists did not think rape was as pressing a concern, and that Essie Willians believed the feminist analysis of rape was reductive.

interesting, i thought, let me go find the context! now, the first tell is that the authors don't cite the book this interview is from, they cite a book written nearly 30 years later. okay, whatever. if you dig up the quote, it's from Rape: The First Sourcebook for Women. i cannot stress how much of a misrepresentation this is. that segment of the interview was where she talked about how rampant sexual abuse was against black women, so rampant that it became invisible. on top of that, completely contrary to the framing the authors are pulling here, Essie Green Williams was largely praising the feminist analysis on rape. she emphasized the need for the black feminist movement to incorporate the concepts being worked on in the broader women's movement. in her words, she said "even though as this stage black women will be coming from their own groups... they will not be working in isolation because the larger women's movement is laying the foundations and developing new issues and styles of political action." she also says "I have really strong leanings towards the idea that black feminist groups who have the time should get involved in New York Women Against Rape" and that "rape must become a priority in the black community."

just the total fucking opposite of what these authors are citing it to argue. the quote they're pulling wasn't Essie Green Williams saying that rape wasn't a priority, she was actually explaining again, in her actual words that "so many of our young women have been raped that it's almost an assumption that a woman is to be abused... and this is the attitude of not just the police but the community. you see, black women rarely get the kind of response that they need when they've been raped."

to splice away all context and imply that Essie Green Williams was side-lining rape... i don't even know what to say. actually disrespectful. if anything, this interview was primarily a criticism not of feminism, but the under-emphasis on misogyny in black liberation! i cannot fucking believe you'd use an interview about the misogyny black women deal with from black men and the need for a feminist consciousness to castigate feminism! and, one last quote for these rape apologists butchering her words for their narrative, she would not have supported you weakening rape laws, she was actually "lobbying for the change in rape laws" to convict rapists. sorry i really can't get past how nightmareishly evil it was to use her words like this. i don't have access to the book they cited, so i don't know if it reprints the whole interview or just snippets. they either didn't read anything beyond one or two lines or are knowingly distorting it beyond recognition and i really don't know which is worse.

there's other things they massively distort, so i wouldn't put it past them. they tacitly imply a 35 yr old man with "Asperger's Syndrome" (Asperger's, really?) who downloaded child porn couldn't have understand the implications. they also mention this in tandem with intellectual disabilities, and i really don't know if they're deceptively conflating ASD with intellectual disability or if they actually just don't know. which would be insane because famously one of the criteria for Asperger's when that was a diagnosis was no intellectual disability. it's not ableist to expect an autistic man to not look at child porn. are you crazy. well actually, i guess they think this whole thing about child porn is pretty overblown anyway, because what they is say: "We are left to take the government’s word on its awfulness and prevalence, and imagine the worst." god forbid we imagine the worst about CHILD PORN!!!! and the not-so-subtle dismissal that it could be a prevalent problem.

80% of this book is about the sex offender registry. and like look, I'm not attached to the sex offender registry in particular if it doesn't help victims (although i haven't done research & they give me no reason to trust them), but they basically extrapolate that the sex offender registry's failures to mean that... erm... rape is over-prosecuted. i'm also deeply in agreement that the current prison system does a terrible job with handling sex crimes & often makes the lives of victims worse. but the biggest failures of this book is that it ultimately treats rape as just another crime. no, the reasons behind rape and theft or even fucking murder are not the same, rape is a crime of power. the biggest tell is that the authors refer to rape as "interpersonal violence." framing rape as mere interpersonal conflict completely depoliticizes it, rape is systemic, yet they make little effort to analyze how rape relates to patriarchy. any mention of patriarchy is little more than lip service, sure yes, they spend a few pages (a 100 pages in) vaguely saying something about toxic masculinity... but they show no understanding of WHY. they would have you think that everyone who could be convicted of rape just did a little poor communication. perhaps because understanding rape as exerting power doesn't line up with re-affirming how it's very normal for adult men to be attracted to teenagers. truly not kidding, they say "an adult man’s attraction to a sixteen year-old in fact, a common subtext of mainstream advertising" YES BECAUSE PEDOPHILIA IS RELATED TO PATRIARCHY BECAUSE YOUTH SIGNIFIES POWERLESSNESS. holy fucking shit dawg our "feminists" sound indistinguishable from evo-psych losers telling you adult men aren't pedophiles they're just ephebophiles

the aforementioned adult man's attraction to teenagers culminated in him grooming a 16 yr old boy, which they don't think is "grooming" because he could have just ghosted him if he didn't like it. you actually can't make this book sound worse than it is. also when they recommend lowering the age of consent, their answer to potential abuse is "If a young person felt she was being coerced or exploited, however, she could bring a complaint to the child protective agency." this whole fucking book is purportedly about how the justice system is broken and your answer is WELL THEY COULD ALWAYS JUST COMPLAIN IF ANYTHING GOES WRONG. WHAT. isn't the ONE thing that we agree on that the system doesn't work??? i almost put "doesn't take rape victims seriously" but i forgot that they actually don't think that at all and clearly believe victims are exaggerating. of course the implication also is that if this 13 year old doesn't say something, well, she must have just wanted it!

if you were an alien who crash-landed on earth and this was your first exposure to language ever, you'd probably walk away thinking that rape is a victimless crime. actually, they want you to think "we reject the dichotomy of perpetrator and victim. When rape or abuse is done, there is almost always enough trauma to go around, in the childhoods and adult lives of both harmed and harmdoer." even if someone had a troubled life, there is UNQUESTIONABLY a perpetrator and a victim in the event of rape. they plead against that any "carceral" method could ever be need by deflecting onto more ambiguous edge cases, but even those barely help. they even admit that "Perhaps a better explanation is that people with convictions for sex offenses often do not see themselves as criminals—they are more likely to insist they are innocent of their charges or were convicted of acts that should not be illegal, such as consensual sex with a teenager." isn't this a huge marker against the straightforward transformative justice you're advocating? how are you pushing a redemption arc onto people who don't think they did anything wrong in the first place?

another distortion is their great and inspiring example of 'transformative justice' where "Kyra’s needs were heard and validated. Malcolm was not shunned or stigmatized, yet he took responsibility for his actions... achieving accountability without engaging the criminal legal system." and yes, after googling it, this stunning 'accountability' he took meant that he went on to sexually assault SEVERAL other women after this. that information would have been publicly available in 2019, before this book was published, so yet another case of frankly malignant dishonesty. i'm also doubtful that it's worthwhile to invoke sexual assault recidivism rates when it's not a crime that gets easily convicted in the first place, i would imagine that it has low recidivism rates.

then they have the audacity to call anyone else neoliberal MOTHERFUCKER THAT'S YOU. YOUUUUU. they even say that calling an occupation a type of exploitation is implying the wokers must be "crazy, deeply traumatized or coerced." of course labor is coercive for the working class THAT'S. WHAT. CAPITALISM. IS. HUH. calling labor exploitative is not a moral judgement on the laborer you troglodytes. brother the neoliberals are accusing other people of neoliberals while they think labor is about affirming your inner self truth or something i don't even fucking know. i don't know how many bricks you need to have dropped on your head to enjoy this book like anything correct here about the evils of the prison industrial complex is said 291203i19123123 times better by people who aren't trying to delegitimize rape. i would actually prefer someone being a self-professed MRA than pretend that it's feminist to say sexual violence is overblown

okay last quote:

"Containment is described as “victim centered”: its priority is the safety and healing of the harmed person. In practice, this often means an aggressive disregard for the needs of the patient—the “offender”—most significantly, for the honesty, mutual trust, and confidentiality that most therapists believe are the prerequisites of a therapeutic relationship. But people with sex-related convictions are never taken at their word."

yes, the people never taken at their word in the rapist/survivor dynamic, are the rapists. no hope for women etc etc

[Sukhpreet · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book seems to be getting some undeserved vitriol on here. I found it strong and thought it contained good wisdom on the carceral nature of America's sex offense regime and how it fails the many parties involved and implicated. Abolition feminism for all!