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Introduction
Attitudes towards offenders have been a frequent research interest for many years. Attitudes towards men who have sexually offended (MSO) became a research interest in the 1990s, instigating the development of the attitudes towards sex offenders scale (Hogue, 1993). This initiated research into attitudes towards MSO (e.g. Hogue, 1993; Hogue and Peebles, 1997). From an internal perspective, MSO have been found to have more positive attitudes towards their own offender group (Hogue, 1993). From an external perspective, the literature supports an “exposure equates to more positive attitudes” argument, with an emphasis on the importance of job role (Hogue, 1993). The importance of understanding and exploring the attitudes of those who work with MSO is highlighted in theories that outline the desistance process, and the factors that contribute to effective desistance, including the role that staff play in therapeutic treatment and reintegration. Both the Integrated Theory of Desistance from Sexual Offending (Gobbels et al., 2012) and the responsivity principle of the risk-need-responsivity (RNR) model (Andrews and Bonta, 2010) highlight the importance of staff in the treatment and desistance process; thus we must understand this process, and make the necessary changes to maintain desistance. The importance of exploring sexual offending is emphasised by evidence that suggests recidivism increases if ex-offenders are not adequately supported upon release into the community (Laws and Ward, 2011) to access basic primary goods as outlined by the Good Lives Model (Ward and Maruna, 2007).
Previous attitudinal research focusses on the label of “sex offender”, rather than characteristics such as personality. This results in MSO being defined by their offence in a way that other offenders do not appear to become defined. Research has found that using the label of “sex offender” created attitudes that strengthen public support for the use of policies to manage MSO, and strongly influence the way in which the public perceive offenders (Harris and Socia, 2014). Introducing a label of paedophilia to vignettes results in more punitive attitudes against MSO, in comparison to a description of men having a “sexual interest in children” (Imhoff, 2015). This highlights the importance of labels in the formation of attitudes, but also raises the issue of misrepresentation of sex crimes in the media, and the influence this has on the...