Preventing sexual violence: Alternatives to worrying about recidivism.

By Eric.S. Janus

  How can it be that in the era in which almost one million Americans are on sex offender registries—most of whom are publicly stigmatized on websites,

banished from their homes, shunned from their jobs, prevented from uniting with their families and traveling internationally, forced into homelessness, all of which increases their risk for suicide, and shames their spouses and children, even if their offenses occurred long in the past—that the #MeToo movement would explode, revealing widespread sexual misconduct against women, by powerful men, protected by iconic institutions? How can we have had three decades of the most aggressive, “spare-no-expense” laws ostensibly designed to prevent sexual violence and, at the same time, observe the widespread failure of law enforcement agencies to take the simple step of analyzing sexual assault kits, as a first step in the investigation of allegations of sexual abuse? How can these phenomena co-exist? This Article argues that this incongruity is not an ironic coincidence, but rather a flaw that goes to the heart of our contemporary approach to sexual violence prevention. This flaw has, at its core, an almost obsessive focus on recidivistic sexual violence. Understanding this central characteristic will illuminate a framework for an alternative approach to our public policy on sexual violence, one in which the prevention of recidivism plays but a small role in a more comprehensive approach to sexual violence and its place in our culture.    

  103 Marq. L. Rev. 819 (2020).