TY - JOUR
T1 - Circles of support and accountability for sex offenders in England and Wales: Their origins and implementation between 1999-2005
AU - Nellis, M.
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) are an innovative, volunteer-based means
of supervising sex offenders, usually upon release from prison, which were 'transplanted'
from Canada to England and Wales at the turn of the 21st century. The Religious Society
of Friends (Quakers), and the Lucy Faithful Foundation, were concerned with both the
extreme demonisation of sex offenders in the press, and with the need to find better ways
of safeguarding children from sexual abuse. The Home Office was simultaneously
developing new mechanisms of public protection and funded three COSA pilot schemes
between 2002 and 2005. The processes of development and implementation were
essentially informal and improvised, crucially dependent on the choices, decisions, energy,
status and reputations of particular individuals in particular places and networks. Circles
flourished at the intersection of a nascent official concern with public protection, and the
determination of faith-based professional activists (and others) to reaffirm the
redeemability of sex offenders, but there was never a 'structural logic' which made the
emergence of COSA inevitable. Drawing on information from the key players, this paper
details the processes by which they came into being.
AB - Circles of Support and Accountability (COSA) are an innovative, volunteer-based means
of supervising sex offenders, usually upon release from prison, which were 'transplanted'
from Canada to England and Wales at the turn of the 21st century. The Religious Society
of Friends (Quakers), and the Lucy Faithful Foundation, were concerned with both the
extreme demonisation of sex offenders in the press, and with the need to find better ways
of safeguarding children from sexual abuse. The Home Office was simultaneously
developing new mechanisms of public protection and funded three COSA pilot schemes
between 2002 and 2005. The processes of development and implementation were
essentially informal and improvised, crucially dependent on the choices, decisions, energy,
status and reputations of particular individuals in particular places and networks. Circles
flourished at the intersection of a nascent official concern with public protection, and the
determination of faith-based professional activists (and others) to reaffirm the
redeemability of sex offenders, but there was never a 'structural logic' which made the
emergence of COSA inevitable. Drawing on information from the key players, this paper
details the processes by which they came into being.
KW - sex offenders
KW - sexual abuse
KW - public protection
UR - http://www.cjp.org.uk/publications/bjcj/
M3 - Article
VL - 7
JO - British Journal of Community Justice
JF - British Journal of Community Justice
SN - 1475-0279
IS - 1
ER -