Sex-Positive Criminology proposes a new way to think about sexuality in the fields of criminology and criminal justice. Sex-positivity is framed as a humanizing approach to sexuality that supports the well-being of self and others. It is rooted in the principle of active and ongoing consent, and it encourages perspectives that value bodily autonomy, the right to access education, and respect for sexual difference. In this book, the authors argue that institutions such as prisons, schools, and healthcare facilities, as well as agents of governments, such as law enforcement, correctional officers, and politicians, can unduly cause harm and perpetuate stigma through the regulation and criminalization of sexuality. In order to critique institutions that criminalize and regulate sexuality, the authors of Sex-Positive Criminology examine case studies exploring the criminalization of commercial sex and related harm (at the hands of law enforcement) experienced by those who sell sex. They investigate sex education in schools, reproductive justice in communities and institutions, and restrictions on sexuality in places like prisons, jails, juvenile detention, and immigrant detention facilities. They look into the criminalization of BDSM practices and address concerns about young people’s sexuality connected to age of consent and privacy violations. The authors demonstrate how a sex-positive perspective could help criminologists, policymakers, and educators understand not only how to move away from sex-negative frameworks in theory, policy, and practice, but how sex-positive criminological frameworks can be a useful tool to reduce harm and increase personal agency. Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to students and scholars in criminology, sociology, sexuality studies, cultural studies, criminal justice, social theory, and all those interested in the relationship between sexuality and the crimino-legal system.

Preventing Sexual Harm provides an overview of current criminal justice strategies for tackling sexual violence, and highlights existing positive criminological approaches that could help prevent sexual abuse and harm. Sexual violence is a complex, multi-faceted crime. Its causes and consequences are both multiple and enduring and our understanding of sexual violence is embedded within our social, cultural, and political constructs. As such, a response to sexual violence ought to be equally complex and multi-faceted. Alternative approaches might therefore be needed, such as positive criminology. This book explores positive criminology as a mechanism to reduce the risk of recidivism, eradicate harm, prevent reoffending as well as to help reintegrate those with histories of sexual abuse back into the community. In light of recent historic cases of sexual abuse and poor institutional response to these allegations, it opens with an overview of the current landscape of sexual offending. The book then reviews the current positive criminological approaches already in existence in the effort to prevent sexual abuse by outlining the approach of positive criminology and by demonstrating the many gaps in practice that might benefit from this new way of working to prevent sexual abuse. By highlighting that an alternative response to sexual violence is needed, and by presenting the idea that a positive criminological paradigm is worthy of further examination, this book will be of great interest to scholars of criminology, criminal justice, and forensic psychology.

Each of us was created through sex, and every day we are influenced by sex. Our hormones influence us continually, in our thinking, feeling, and body. Therefore, it is simple logic to recognize that a saint or holy person is a result of a upright, pure sexual life, while a criminal or a liar is the result of a degenerated, impure sexual life. The sexual energy of a saint fills their heart, mind, and body with pure thoughts, pure emotions, and vitalizing energy. The sexual energy of a criminal fills their heart, mind, and body with degenerated thoughts, emotions, and energy. Therefore, if we want a better life, we simply need to learn how to use our sexual energy in a better way. We can do so by understanding the connections between three sciences: sexology, endocrinology, and criminology. Sexology studies love, the most powerful force in human life. It inspires our greatest acts, sustains us in difficult times, gives us hope, inspiration, and purpose. But more than that, love is the power that turns the common person into a superhuman. The sexual energy — which fuels the love of a couple and creates children — is also the wellspring of the love expressed by the greatest human beings, such as Jesus, Buddha, Joan of Arc, etc. While it is well known that serious spiritual seekers preserve their sexual energy for spiritual purposes, science has largely ignored why. The preservation of the sexual energy (called chastity, tantra, alchemy, karezza, coitus interruptus) supercharges the endocrine system and the brain. On the other hand, the worst human beings are always sexual degenerates whose bodies and minds are decayed. Endocrinology studies the active agent of sex: our endocrine system, the incredible power of hormones. The hormones not only push us towards sexual activity, they also power the pineal and pituitary glands, which facilitate our ability to imagine, to “see” with our “mind’s eye.” The hormones influence the brain and the heart: when a person is in love, the hormones inspire that love, and raise the quality of life to the highest, while also filling the mind with beautiful visions of the beloved. When a person is afflicted by lust, the hormones saturate the brain and heart with lustful desire and degenerated, selfish fantasies. For the suprasexual, the hormones are the vitalizing influence that regenerates the brain and heart, and empowers visions, clairvoyance, conscious dreams, and spiritual powers. For the infrasexual, the hormones — being corrupted by desire, lust, anger, and pride — cloud the mind, degenerate the emotions into selfishness, and hypnotize the consciousness with paranoia, hallucinations, obsessions, fantasies of wealth and power, motivating the person towards crime, violence, rape, etc. This is criminology: the science that examines how desire, expressed through mental images, is the basis of crime. If we want to guide our life towards higher level, or if we want to help those who suffer — such as criminals, the mentally ill, the paranoids, or the depressed — then we need to understand how to use the sexual energy in a restorative and regenerating way.

"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."--

Crime, Shame and Reintegration is a contribution to general criminological theory. Its approach is as relevant to professional burglary as to episodic delinquency or white collar crime. Braithwaite argues that some societies have higher crime rates than others because of their different processes of shaming wrongdoing. Shaming can be counterproductive, making crime problems worse. But when shaming is done within a cultural context of respect for the offender, it can be an extraordinarily powerful, efficient and just form of social control. Braithwaite identifies the social conditions for such successful shaming. If his theory is right, radically different criminal justice policies are needed - a shift away from punitive social control toward greater emphasis on moralizing social control. This book will be of interest not only to criminologists and sociologists, but to those in law, public administration and politics who are concerned with social policy and social issues.

How can we best help offenders desist from crime, as well as help victims heal? This book engages with this question by offering its readers a comprehensive review of positive criminology in theory, research and practice. Positive criminology is a concept – a perspective – that places emphasis on forces of integration and social inclusion that are experienced positively by target individual and groups, and may contribute to a reduction in negative emotions, desistance from crime and overcoming the traumatic experience of victimization. In essence, positive criminology holds a more holistic view, which acknowledges that thriving and disengagement from distress, addiction, mental illness, crime, deviance or victimization might be fostered more effectively by enhancing positive emotions and experiences, rather than focusing on reducing negative attributes. Each chapter in this book is written by key scholars in the related fields of criminology, victimology and addiction and, thus, assembles varied and extensive approaches to rehabilitation and treatment. These approaches share in common a positive criminology view, thereby enriching our understanding of the concept and other strength-based approaches to dealing with offenders and victims. This edited book elaborates on positive criminology core ideas and assumptions; discusses related theories and innovations; and presents various benefits that this perspective can promote in the field of rehabilitation. For this reason, this book will be essential reading for those engaged in the study of criminology, criminal justice and victimology and may also assist scholars and professionals to help offenders desist from crime and improve victims’ well-being.