The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma

"When a South Carolina couple killed a registered sex offender and his wife after they moved into their neighborhood in 2013, the story exposed an extreme and relatively rare instance of violence against sex offenders. While media accounts would have us believe that vigilantes across the country lie in wait for predators who move into their neighborhoods, responses to sex offenders more often involve collective campaigns that direct outrage toward political and criminal justice systems. No community wants a sex offender in its midst, but instead of vigilantism, [the author] argues, citizens often leverage moral, political, and/or legal authority to keep these offenders out of local neighborhoods. Her book, the culmination of four years of research, 70 in-depth interviews, participant observations, and studies of numerous media sources, reveals the origins and characteristics of community responses to sexually violent predators (SVP) in the U.S. Specifically, [this book] examines the placement process for released SVPs in California and the communities’ responses to those placements. Taking the reader into the center of these related issues, [the author] provokes debate on the role of communities in the execution of criminal justice policies, while also addressing the responsibility of government institutions to both groups of citizens."--

The controversy surrounding community responses to housing for sexually violent predators When a South Carolina couple killed a registered sex offender and his wife after they moved into their neighborhood in 2013, the story exposed an extreme and relatively rare instance of violence against sex offenders. While media accounts would have us believe that vigilantes across the country lie in wait for predators who move into their neighborhoods, responses to sex offenders more often involve collective campaigns that direct outrage toward political and criminal justice systems. No community wants a sex offender in its midst, but instead of vigilantism, Monica Williams argues, citizens often leverage moral, political, and/or legal authority to keep these offenders out of local neighborhoods. Her book, the culmination of four years of research, 70 in-depth interviews, participant observations, and studies of numerous media sources, reveals the origins and characteristics of community responses to sexually violent predators (SVP) in the U.S. Specifically, The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma examines the placement process for released SVPs in California and the communities’ responses to those placements. Taking the reader into the center of these related issues, Monica Williams provokes debate on the role of communities in the execution of criminal justice policies, while also addressing the responsibility of government institutions to both groups of citizens. The Sex Offender Housing Dilemma is sure to promote increased civic engagement to help strengthen communities, increase public safety, and ensure government accountability.

This volume is the first comprehensive empirical examination of the premises and effects of sex offender registration and notification laws.

A landmark volume about the importance of housing in social life. In 1947, the president of the American Sociological Association argued for the importance of housing as a field of sociological research. Yet seventy-five years later, the sociology of housing has not developed as a distinct field, leaving efforts to understand housing's place in society to other disciplines, such as economics and urban planning. This volume intends to change that, solidifying the place of housing studies as a distinct subfield within the discipline of sociology, showing that housing is both an important element of sociology and a significant component of social life that deserves dedicated attention as a distinct area of research. To do so, the book takes stock of the current field of scholarship and provides new directions for study. The contributors showcase the very best traditions of sociology--they draw on diverse methodological approaches, present unique field sites and data sources, and foreground sociological theory to understand contemporary housing issues. The Sociology of Housing will be a landmark volume, used by researchers and students alike as an introduction to this crucial field and a map of its future potential.

Engaged Criminology: An Introduction invites students to learn and think like a criminologist through its applied learning approach. Author Rena C. Zito adopts a conversational tone, prompting students to interrogate inequalities, consider unintended consequences, and envision solutions, all while highlighting the role of systemic inequalities as predictors and outcomes of criminal conduct and punishment. Real-world examples and hands-on activities get students doing criminology rather than just retaining definitions, as well as fostering critical interaction with the most central ideas in contemporary criminology. This title is accompanied by a complete teaching and learning package in SAGE Vantage, an intuitive learning platform that integrates quality SAGE textbook content with assignable multimedia activities and auto-graded assessments to drive student engagement and ensure accountability. Unparalleled in its ease of use and built for dynamic teaching and learning, Vantage offers customizable LMS integration and best-in-class support.

Communication Ethics Today includes chapters by leading professionals and academics on: .Ethical issues in alternative journalism .Ethical work practices, communication and organisational commitment .Between trust and anxiety: on the moods of Information Society .Communication and the machine of government .Secrecy, communications strategy and democratic values Professor Clifford Christians, of the University of Illinois-Urbana, says: "These chapters en masse promote truth-telling as the over-arching ethical framework for understanding the media's mission and practice."

The iron law of imprisonment is that “they all come back”. In 2002, more than 630,000 individuals left U.S. federal and state prisons. Thirty years ago, only 150,000 did. In this study, Travis decribes the new realities of imprisonment, and explores the impact of returning prisoners on seven policy domains: public safety, families and children, work, housing, public health, civic identity, and community capacity. Travis proposes a new architecture for the criminal justice system, organized around five principles of reentry, to encourage change and spur innovation.