Description
Book SynopsisMost 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...
Trade ReviewJanus makes a persuasive case that by throwing vast resources at a few offenders while hiding the true scope of sexual violence, sexual predator laws do more harm than good. Not only is the public not much safer than it was before civil commitment became widespread, he writes, but we've unleashed a political monster.
* Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages *
Nowhere in Failure to Protect does the author minimize the damage done by criminals.... The problem, Janus says, is that extreme offenders have been incorrectly cast as the archetypal sex criminal. The result has been laws that reflect and reinforce a distorted view of sexual violence, remove resources from more effective policies, and are the signs of a constitutionally questionable 'preventive state.' Janus argues that sexual predator laws reflect a conservative backlash against hard lessons learned from the feminist movement about the systematic nature of sexual violence in society. and the fact that most sexual offenses are committed by a member of the victim's family or social circle. He identifies misconceptions about recidivism and questions 'actuarial' approaches that assign a static risk rating to an individual and ignore changes from treatment, aging, or altered circumstances.
* Chronicle of Higher Education *
