Ageing Child Sex Offenders in Prison: Denial, Manipulation and Community

Abstract

Abstract Within the prison population there exists a subculture consisting of those prisoners who need protection; these individuals are the ones who reside in the vulnerable prisoner unit and include informers, ex‐police officers, those with special educational needs and sex offenders. In short, this unit houses all those individuals who are at risk of attack from their fellow prisoners. Life within this subculture is different from life in the mainstream population; it is no less difficult, no less of an alien environment within which to survive, but the characteristics of the men ensure that the dominant moral order is unlike that of the main prison wings. Based on intensive fieldwork carried out with men aged 50 years and over in three English prisons, this article examines how child sex offenders, the most vilified subsection of the prison population, survive, and observes the differing ways in which both acceptance of, and resistance to, the prison regime become manipulated actions executed by extremely knowledgeable agents.

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