Nicholas Blagden - Sexual Crime and the Experience of Imprisonment

Sexual Crime is an edited book series devised by a team at SOCAMRU led by Professor Belinda Winder in the Psychology Division at Nottingham Trent University.

It offers original contributions to specific avenues of research within the field of sexual crime with each volume drawing together a review of the literature from across disciplines, including cutting edge research and practice, original material from services and offenders themselves as well as future directions for research and practice.

These volumes will be highly relevant to clinical and forensic psychologists and therapists, offender managers and supervisors, social workers and those working in the field of rehabilitation. They will be a great source of insight for academics, researchers and students in these disciplines as well as criminologists and policy makers.

More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/15477

Cover illustration: Daniel Kaesler / EyeEm/gettyimages

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

I am delighted and excited to introduce this important and much needed book about the experiences of imprisonment for people convicted of sexual offences written by international experts.

Ministry of Justice data indicates that the number of people imprisoned for sexual offences in England and Wales has grown from 4 per cent of (a much smaller) prison population in 1981 to 18 per cent in recent years. There are a number of reasons for this increase, not least a greater awareness and intolerance of sexual crime, an increase in internet-related offences and the prosecution of historic sexual offences.

People imprisoned for sexual offences are often vulnerable and set apart from the wider prison population often as a result of the abhorrence and fear felt by both staff and other prisoners to the crimes they have committed.

This particular area of work has been a consistent feature of much of my professional life; this text provides a welcome contribution to the development of knowledge on the subject using evidence from around the world.

For much of the last 30 years the body of knowledge about the reasons why people commit sexual offences has grown and continues to grow. Whilst we continue to develop this knowledge and what needs to be done to help people not to reoffend in the future, prison -based research has often focused on specialist treatment programmes. As the Governor of a specialist treatment site for people with sexual convictions I know from my conversations with both staff and prisoners the importance of respectful and supportive staff prisoner relations. This is vital for the overall welfare of the prisoner whilst he/she is in custody and also in supporting his/her successful transition back to the community.

I hope that this book will help to develop strategy and thinking on the subject. Its eight chapters cover the link between desistance from sexual offending and the provision of a positive prison climate . Chapter considers the impact of attitudes towards people convicted of sexual offences on legislation, rehabilitative outcomes and eventual reintegration process.

It is vital that we continue to learn about new and imaginative solutions to this growing problem and this book offers a useful and thought-provoking basis upon which to build and develop appropriate responses.