Police officer attitudes to the practicalities of the sex offenders’ register, ViSOR and Child Sexual Abuse Disclosure Scheme in England and Wales

McCartan, Kieran; Hoggett, James; O'Sullivan, Jack

Abstract

© 2017 National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers. 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.

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Nov 15, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Dec 25, 2017
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2018
• Deposit Date: Nov 16, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 25, 2018
• Journal: Journal of Sexual Aggression
• Print ISSN: 1355-2600
• Electronic ISSN: 1742-6545
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 24
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 37-50
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13552600.2017.1411641
• Keywords: Sex offenders’ register; ViSOR; Child Sexual Offender Disclosure Scheme; perpetrators of sexual harm
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/875091
• Publisher URL: https://doi.org/10.1080/13552600.2017.1411641
• Additional Information: Additional Information : This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Journal of Sexual Aggression on 25 December 2017, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13552600.2017.1411641
• Contract Date: Nov 16, 2017