Exposing ‘Sex’ Offenders Precarity, Abjection and Violence in the Canadian Federal Prison System

© The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies (ISTD). All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]

EXPOSING ‘SEX’ OFFENDERS

Precarity, Abjection and Violence in the Canadian Federal Prison System

Rosemary Ricciardelli* and Dale Spencer

Imprisoned sex offenders face abjection because of their criminality and are the most victimized group of adult male prisoners. Drawing on Judith Butler’s work on gender, abjection and precar-ity, and scholarship focused on prison masculinities, we examine the experiences of sex offenders while incarcerated and the role of various agents in exposing their convictions to other prisoners and, ultimately, to victimization. Given each prisoner’s convictions are not immediately known when they enter the penitentiary and recognizing that prison is unsafe for sex offenders, we sought to understand how sex offenders attempt to pass among the general prisoner population and the methods through which their convictions become known. Utilizing interviews with 59 formerly incarcerated men, we analyse the modalities that sex offenders employ to ‘pass’ as non-sex offenders and the anxieties associated with awaiting their inevitable exposure. Former prisoners reveal the methods used by staff and prisoners to expose those with sex-related convictions.

Keywords: sex offenders, prison, incarceration, sex crimes, gender, abjection, precarity

Introduction

Sex offenders are the most vulnerable population in and outside of prison (e.g. Akerstrom 1986; Blaauw et al. 2001; Petrunik and Weisman 2005). They are openly targeted for extreme levels of physical and psychological victimization (Spencer 2009) and are heavily stigmatized. This stigmatization shapes their social identity and their experiences of incarceration (Ricciardelli and Moir 2013). To avoid such a mark of disgust, sex offenders have been found to try to ‘pass’ as ‘solid’ or non-sex offenders (Schwaebe 2005; Tan and Grace 2008). Their ability to pass is mediated by the norma-tive masculinity and social hierarchy that exists among male prisoners (e.g. Toch 1998; Jewkes 2005; Bandyopadhyay 2006; Evans and Wallace 2008). However, despite best efforts to pass, the true nature of their convictions is eventually exposed to the general prison population. Researchers have yet to examine the different methods through which sex offenders are exposed and we fill this lacuna by demonstrating why and how sex-offender status is exposed. Drawing on the extensive literature on prison masculini-ties and Judith Butler’s work on gender, abjection and precarity, we analyse the roles of prison staff, the institution in which the offender has served time and other prisoners in exposing sex offenders.

We demonstrate how prison staff members, prisoners and sex-offender programmes enact institutional abjection and expose prisoners’ past and current convictions. We

*Rosemary Ricciardelli, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 4067, Arts Building, St John’s, Newfoundland, A1C 5S7, Canada; [email protected]; Dale Spencer, Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts, University of Manitoba, 306, Isbister Building, Winnipeg, Manitoba, R3T2N2, Canada; [email protected].

doi:10.1093/bjc/azu012 BRIT. J. CRIMINOL. (2014) 54, 428–448

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examine how assertions of masculinity first shaped within the gendered penal culture serve to animate this process of abjection through exposure in an environment where prisoners strive to prove their masculine dominance. Given this act of exposure is a pre-cursor to the abjection and victimization experienced by sex offenders, it has serious implications during incarceration. In addition, the practice of sharing falsified knowl-edge about prisoners’ charges (i.e. exposing a non-sex offender as a sex offender) is not only laced with gendered assumptions, but also opens these prisoners to the same potential victimization otherwise reserved for ‘true’ sex offenders. We demonstrate how exposure reinforces positions of precarity for any person conceived of being incar-cerated for a sex-related crime. This precarity creates new challenges for masculine embodiment and performance that must be negotiated as the prisoner strives to miti-gate the realities of prison living.

This article is structured in four main sections. In the first section, we introduce the literature on prison masculinities and the gendered social hierarchy that exists among male prisoners. We then explore Judith Butler’s approach to gender, precarity and abjection, and use her work as an analytic to understand the experiences of sex offend-ers while incarcerated. In the second section, we discuss the methods of this study. In the third section, drawing on the narratives of formerly incarcerated sex offenders and the views and experiences of non-sex offenders, we offer analysis of the modalities by which sex offenders try to ‘pass’ and avoid the mark of a sex offender while incarcer-ated. In the final section, we examine modes through which sex offenders are exposed while incarcerated and the implications of such exposure.

Hegemonic and Prison Masculinities

Hegemonic masculinity is associated with dominance, hetero-normativity and aggres-sion, and represents the ‘cultural ideal of manhood’ shaped across time and space (Connell 1987; 1993; Demetriou 2001). This ‘ideal form’ is embodied by a minority of men, malleable in formation, and reflective of the socially dominant and most revered manifestation of masculinity (Connell 1990; 1995). Connell (1995) argues that what constitutes the essence of masculine hegemony is the processes through which some men are able to assert and embody power while legitimizing and reproducing the social relations and structures that reinforce their dominant positions (see also Connell 1983; 1987; Carrigan et al. 1985). In this view, while males who embody hegemonic masculin-ity are invulnerable to the environmental nuances that could pose threats to his-self, they are superordinate over the subordinate majority who embody a more precarious form of masculinity. How hegemony is achieved within each unique cultural, institu-tion and structural context also lends insight into how it is then asserted, enacted, as well as its adaptive and transformative potential (Connell 1992).

The hyper-masculine backdrop of the penal environment is founded on ‘unusually highly developed masculine forms as defined by existing cultural values’ (Schroeder 2004: 418; see also Haney 2011; Glass 1984), and promotes an exaggerated ‘manliness’ in which prisoners must assert their masculine subject position. This environment places a premium on normative presentations of masculinity, which we understand in the penal context as hypermasculine. Hegemonic masculinity is flexible in construc-tion as it responds to power relations in light of the currently honoured notions of


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‘manhood’ (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005), whereas hyper-masculinity is consistent in its focus on strength, prowess and perceived status.

Rymhs (2012: 77) asserts that ‘prison remains a decidedly masculine place’; however, the male prison environment is inherently emasculating (e.g. prisoners live without freedom, agency, independence and heterosexuality) and yet is laced with constructions of masculinities that essentially place prisoners vis-à-vis their gender-subject position as victims and/or perpetrators of dominant masculinities (Sykes 1958; Toch 1998; Britton 2003; Jewkes 2005; Bandyopadhyay 2006; Evans and Wallace 2008). Hierarchical rela-tionships are linked to masculinities and shape penal environments that in a recursive way reproduce hegemonic ideals by allocating status to prisoners based on qualities tied to hegemonic constructions (e.g. Denborough 1995; Sabo 2001; Stanko 2001; Gear 2007).

Despite being influenced by the deprived penal environment as well as lived experi-ences in the free world (e.g. Denborough 1995; Sabo 2001; Stanko 2001; Bandyopadhyay 2006; Hannah-Moffat and O’Malley 2007), gendered identities are formed through the performance of masculinities for ‘emotional, psychological and social survival … [that] mask self-perceived weakness or vulnerability and to attain status and legitimacy’ (de Viggiani 2012: 271). Such ‘masks’ do not offer protection from exploitation, harm or victimization, as aggression and prowess are valued attributions that (re)affirm or define (often by preying on weaker men) a prisoner’s masculinity (Toch 1998; Lutze and Murphy 1999; Nandi 2002). Ricciardelli’s (2014a) investigation of prison living confirms that physical altercations are normative in the more (high-medium, maxi-mum) secure federal penal environments, which are riddled with violence, hostility and aggression. Prison masculinities must adapt to the excessive governance, depriva-tion and violence (e.g. Phillips 2001; Bandyopadhyay 2006), which then constitute the informal conduct standards that define prison living and engender some semblance of solidarity (Sykes 1958; Grapendaal 1990; Ricciardelli 2014b).

Precarity, Abjection and Gender

In Butler’s (1990) analysis of gender performativity, she asserts that the cultural dis-course providing regulatory gender ideals work to organize bodies in specific ways to naturalize the sex dichotomy on bodies. She further contends that no one can fully embody the normative ideal, which demonstrates the contingency of meaning as it pertains to identity formation. Masculine ‘dominance’ and feminine ‘weakness’ are naturalized on bodies through everyday corporeal performances. With sex and gender disciplined upon bodies, the heterosexual matrix is the means by which adult ‘proper’ males and females are identified as heterosexual. The strange and incoherent—those bodies that do not conform to norms—provide understanding of the presupposed world of sexual categorization as constructed (Butler 1990). That said, regulatory practices regarding sex, gender and sexuality are not benign. Rather, they are often violently instituted. Those that are not easily interpellated into ‘proper’ gender perfor-mances face sanctions of various sorts.

In Butler (1993), we find a conjoining of analysis of deviations from sex and gender norms with discussions of abjection. Butler defines abjection as a psychical process of enlivening exclusion and domination that remains ongoing. It always comprises

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incomplete attempts at regulation and normalization of gender and sexuality. That is, abject bodies—those that are not valued subjects because of their deviations from the norm—serve as politically subversive to the symbolic domain of valued bodies. Abject bodies, then, are the whole realm of bodies that are not constructed as viable, but rather as ‘delegitimated bodies that fail to count as “bodies”‘ (Butler 1993: 15). These bodies are not constituted as valuable bodies in our contemporary culture and serve as an ultimate other—a material incarnation of difference that is not discursively legiti-mated (see Wilson 2005). For example, paedophiles serve as the instantiation of the ultimate other; they inhabit a body that is not valued because of their sexual proclivity towards children. As abject bodies, sex offenders face manifold forms of violence in society and in prison for their deviations from sexual norms.

What ties Butler’s earlier work on gender to her more recent work is her focus on the impact of normative discourses on bodies. Her recent writing is focused on the status of ‘life’ and precarious conditions (Butler 2004; 2010). These conditions have to be sustained, meaning they exist not as static entities, but as reproducible social institu-tions and relations. Precarity designates a politically induced condition where certain populations suffer from failing social and economic networks of support and, largely in consequence, become differentially exposed to injury, violence and death. This posi-tion and experience of precarity are antithetical to the hegemonic masculine ideal. These populations are at a heightened risk of disease, poverty, starvation, displacement and of exposure to violence without protection (Butler 2010). Whereas the notion of vulnerability turns focus to individuals and groups who are at high risk of victimiza-tion, precarity shifts attention away from the individual and group level to the actual conditions that expose abject groups to varying forms of violence and, in some cases, death. Abject bodies face levels of precarity via state-sponsored institutions vis-à-vis petty sovereigns (Spencer 2014). Petty sovereigns, as Butler (2004) characterizes them, are agents deployed by tactics of power they do not control, but who use discretionary power nonetheless, and use it to reanimate a sense of sovereignty, or freedom from external control, which the higher, governmentalized constellation of power appears to have foreclosed. Petty sovereigns are agents that often do not recognize the full impact of the ‘work they do, but perform their acts unilaterally and with enormous consequence’ (Butler 2004: 65). For example, although we are not suggesting that a correctional officer will never act in deliberate and knowing ways to exert power, cor-rectional officers, acting as petty sovereigns, do not understand the full significance of the actions they take in relation to prisoners on a day-to-day basis within the realities of their occupational responsibilities. They perform acts that have severe, life-threatening consequences for all prisoners. Correctional officers hold authority and enforce regu-lations often without full recognition that they dictate the lived experience of each prisoner in their custody including where they are placed, when they enter and exit their cell, their access to food, drink, phone, shower, family and their lawyer. Sovereign power is exerted through occupational practices that are shaped by the discretion of correctional officers (e.g. an officer can elect to enforce or ignore rules). Officers play a critical role in shaping prison living for those in their custody (Sparks et al. 1996; Liebling 2004; Crewe 2009).

In this article, we use Butler’s concept of precarity to understand jails and prisons as state-sponsored spaces of precarity where sex offenders are exposed to disproportionate levels and forms of violence. We use the notion of abjection in relation to masculinities


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to show how sex offenders—regardless of their specific sex offence—are positioned as the disgusting other, to be expunged from the general prison population. We utilize Butler’s analysis of gender to understand how normative masculinity serves to regulate what is an acceptable or desirable offence amongst offenders, to designate what are acceptable masculine performances amongst prisoners, and the forms of violence that are brought against sex offenders. This analysis of normative masculinity is further aug-mented by drawing on understandings of prison as well as hegemonic masculinities, as constructed within the confines of prison, and allows for the acknowledgement of particular constructions and policing of appropriate masculine behaviours and identi-ties in prisoner settings (e.g. Denborough 1995; Bosworth and Carrabine 2001; Sabo 2001; Stanko 2001; see Gill et al. 2005; Jewkes 2005; Gear 2007). We use the concept of petty sovereigns to understand the ways in which corrections staff, aware that there are ramifications to ‘outing’ sex offenders, choose to divulge a sex offenders’ conviction to the general prisoner population. We also demonstrate how correctional staff, acting as petty sovereigns, use the power inherent to their occupational position to out a sex offender, or a ‘solid’ offender as a sex offender, to control the prison environment and intensify anxieties regarding the physical safety of all prisoners.

Methods

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 59 Canadian men who had been released from federal custody through achieving parole (released after serving one-third of their full sentence for good behaviour) or qualifying for statutory release (released after serving two-thirds of their full sentence). Participants were sentenced between two years and life with parole (see Table 1). Some interviewees had Long Term Offender status1 (n = 6) and the overwhelming majority had an active warrant2 when interviewed. Their ages ranged from 19 to 58 years, with an average age of 37. The majority of former prisoners (n = 43, 73 per cent) had served at least one previous pro-vincial (i.e. sentenced to two years less a day) and/or juvenile (at least 25 men (42 per cent) recalled being in juvenile) and/or (n = 17, 29 per cent) federal sentence. Only 14 (24 per cent) of the respondents were released from their first experience of incar-ceration. To be included in the sample, participants had to have served at least one Canadian federal sentence and be living in the community, including halfway houses, when interviewed.3 The choice to interview parolees, rather than prisoners, is based on the fact that interviewing in prison is met with many logistical and ethical challenges. For example, logistically, prison lock-down prevents interviewing and, ethically, par-ticipants may look like ‘snitches’ for meeting with a researcher and correctional staff can compromise interview privacy or impact who is able to participate (resulting in selection bias).

Among the participants, 56 per cent (n = 33) were convicted of violent crimes such as manslaughter and second-degree murder; 22 per cent (n = 13) had non-violent

1 An LTO designation is given to people convicted of a ‘serious personal injury offence’ who are deemed likely to reoffend and are thus managed with a specific period of federal supervision in the community of up to ten years after an offender’s release (www.publicsafety.gc.ca/prg/cor/tls/lto-eng.aspx).

2 These participants had not finished their prison sentence.3 Some men did return to prison due to parole breaches.


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Table 1 Prison self-identified ethnicity, nature of criminality, age, age at first incarceration, number of convictions, and security classification of prisons of previous residence

Race Dominant offence type(s)*

Age at interview

Age at first custodial sentence (years)**

Self-report criminal convictions

Security classification of prison

Max. Med. Min.

Black Violent 27 17 – 1 1 –White Non-violent 53 50 3 – – 1White Violent 30 <18 32 1 1 –Muslim Violent 24 18 2 1 1 –Latin American

Non-violent 35 32 1 – – 1

White Violent 23 18 3 1 1 –Black Violent 26 18 4 1 1 –White Violent 35 22 7 – 1 –White Non-violent 23 18 7 – 1 –Black Violent 23 14 16 – 1 –White Non-violent 43 40 1 – – 1White Violent 21 14 20 1 1 –Black Non-violent 41 36 1 – – 1Muslim Non-violent 58 55 5 – – 1Black Violent 27 25 1 – 1 1Black/ Aboriginal

Sexual 43 40 12 – 1 1

White Sexual 50 42 2 – 1 1White Sexual 41 37 20 – 1 1White Violent 43 16 2 1 1 1Black Non-violent 28 14 3 – 1 –White Violent 43 13 30 1 1 1Black Sexual 33 13 100 – 1 –White Violent 47 17 98 1 1 1White Violent 43 23 10 – 1 1White Violent 53 20 14 1 1 1Aboriginal Sexual 45 16 50 1 1 1White Violent 28 12 77 1 1 1White Violent 35 13 70 1 1 1White Sexual 50 18 – N/ABlack Violent 24 <18 10 – 1 –Black 23 <18 5 – 1 –Black Non-violent 26 24 1 – 1Black Violent 42 30 3 – 1 1White Non-violent 52 33 – – 1 –White Violent 45 34 2 – 1 1Black Violent 30 <18 4 – 1 –White Violent 42 35 24 1 1 1Black Violent 45 27 20 – 1 1White Non-violent 31 19 6 – 1 1White Violent 41 13 15 – 1 1Black Non-violent 51 40 3 – – 1Black Violent 32 14 21 – 1 –Aboriginal Violent 19 17 2 1 1 –White Violent 27 12 52 1 – –Black Violent 33 16 17 – 1 –White Violent 33 16 10 1 1 –Aboriginal Sexual 57 54 2 – – 1White Non-violent 27 18 10 – 1 –Black Violent 27 24 5 – – 1Muslim Sexual 51 46 4 – 1 1White Violent 48 16 25 – 1 1

(Continued)


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non-sexual conviction(s) including fraud and importing drugs; and 20 per cent (n = 12) had sex-related conviction such as sexual assault on a minor, child pornography and rape. Those convicted of sex offences had a sex-related index crime and were not dif-ferentiated by the degree of violence in their criminality. In addition, one respondent did not disclose the nature of his conviction(s) and, although his stories were telling, we opted to exclude him from the sub-category of ‘known’ sex offenders. As dictated by federal policy, all former prisoners served time in reception (classified as maximum security) and then were transferred to their ‘home institution’ of varied security clas-sification (see Table 1). Given the structure of the penal institutions (i.e. sex offenders are integrated into the general population in low medium and minimum security facili-ties), our focus here is primarily on the personal or observed experiences of sex offend-ers in reception, maximum and higher-medium security prisons. Known sex offenders often are housed in protective custody in these institutions, as integration into the general population is hindered by social norms and informal behavioural directives in prisoner and staff culture (Ricciardelli 2014a; Ricciardelli and Moir 2013).

Recruitment occurred at the community level, largely facilitated by persons who work directly with ex-prisoners during their reintegration. Information about the study was passed predominantly through word-of-mouth, where these persons and partici-pants informed others about the study and its directives. The sampling technique was thus largely convenience. All participation was voluntary and the confidentiality of par-ticipants has been protected. Given how our sample was recruited, we unfortunately cannot state how many persons declined to participate. Interviews were all conducted

Race Dominant offence type(s)*

Age at interview

Age at first custodial sentence (years)**

Self-report criminal convictions

Security classification of prison

Max. Med. Min.

White Violent 53 21 50 1 1 1White Non-violent 33 21 22 – 1 –White Violent 49 25 45 1 1 –White Sexual 30 26 3 1 1 –White Violent 30 15 – – 1 1White Sexual 36 <18 – – 1 1White Sexual 28 26 1 1White Sexual 45 40 1 1 1Aboriginal (3)Black (17)Muslim (3)White (34)Latin American (1)Other (1)

Non-violent (13)Violent (33)Sexual (violent and non- violent) (12)No report (1)

Average: 36.96

Average: 24.11

Average: 16.16

Total: 20 Total: 48 Total: 33

* If a man had been convicted of any violent offence, they were categorized as having a violent dominant offence type.** Average age at first custody is skewed mildly due to first age of all prisoners who were first incarcerated as a minor being reported as <18, rather than their exact age.

Table 1 Continued


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in a private space in Ontario (Canada) between February 2011 and February 2012, with three being conducted later in June of 2013. Follow-up interviews or conversa-tions were conducted by phone, email or in person, sometimes initiated by interviewees who wanted to further disclose facts about their prison experiences. To date, follow-up has occurred with approximately one-third of the participants.4 Initial interviews were voice-recorded and ranged from 45 to 180 minutes in length. The length of inter-view was determined by either the multitude of experiences of the participant or their general talkativeness. When participants were withdrawn in conversation, a 35-item open-ended interview guide was employed until the interviewee became more open. Nonetheless, the open-ended nature of the items ensured the interviewer had ample flexibility to probe all emergent conversational paths. Ethics approval and consent were obtained. Participants were given opportunities to ask for clarification and were informed that they were not obligated to discuss any topic or experience they were not comfortable doing so. A demographic survey was also completed and field notes were taken during follow-up. The initial 56 men interviewed were offered an honorarium for their participation, which one participant refused.

A grounded theory approach (Glaser and Strauss 1967) to thematic coding guided the data analysis. Transcribed interviews were categorized and subcategorized into emergent conceptual themes; we began by identifying core variables and major themes and then removed less relevant data from the analysis through selective coding. Multiple respondents describing similar experiences or views constituted these central themes. Virtual coding maps were used to organize the data (organizing the transcribed data by themes rather than by participant).5 In relation to the present article, the specific experiences of sex offenders and how they are perceived by non-sex offenders was not an initial objective of the project, but emerged as interviewees discussed their prison experiences and the nature of challenges and penal realities surrounding those con-victed of sex-related offences or those living in close proximity to these individuals.

Exposing Conditions of Precarity: Gender, Violence and Sex Offenders

In broader society, jails and prisons, sex offenders are viewed with disgust (Cowburn and Dominelli 2001; Bell 2002; Brown 2005). In the many discursive constructions of the sex offender, he is the incurably lost—someone who has transgressed heterosexual norms and cannot be brought back into normalcy. He is considered as defiling that which is pure by engaging in sexual contact with children and imbued with disgust and thus deserving of forms of abjection brought against him (Spencer 2009). In the case of paedophiles—a sexual orientation that can underlie sex-related criminal acts targeting children—images of the child rapist and killer serve to intensify the disgust and abjec-tion brought upon sex offenders (Cross 2005). This articulation of sex offenders as disgusting objects to be abjected has significant implications for the lives of prisoners.

4 The number of follow-up interviews conducted is approximated because occasional experiences in locations frequented by participants have resulted in informal, at times unplanned, but extensive follow-up.

5 Any direct verbal quotes from participants have been edited for speech fillers such as ‘like’, ‘umm’ and ‘ahh’, and grammar to assist with comprehensibility and flow. Pseudonyms are used to protect the identities of the respondents and correctional facilities. To stay true to the voice of the respondents, transcriptions were verbatim; edits were minimal and did not affect the participant’s vernacular, use of profanity or slang.


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Within the Canadian federal prison environment, particularly in maximum and higher-medium security facilities in Ontario, sex offenders are acceptable targets for victimization, abjection and violation (Ricciardelli and Moir 2013). Their sex-related behaviours evoke responses of disgust and social rejection among prisoners. The con-victions (and dropped charges) of male prisoners dictate where they are positioned within the virtual hierarchy of the prison environment. Those whose victims are women are relegated to lower rungs on the hierarchy, while those who victimize children are at the absolute bottom (see Gebhard et al. 1965; Vaughn and Sapp 1989; Ricciardelli 2014a). Such men, unlike prisoners whose criminal behaviours fit within the norms of masculinity in prisons (e.g. organized crime affiliations), are thought to defy the standards of normative masculinity—they fail to provide care for ‘children’, they are ill-equipped for consensual sexual conquest, their weakness is emasculating. They occupy a less-than-man position (Ricciardelli 2014b).

Moreover, respondents explain that simply listing their charges and convictions is not sufficient in prison; rather, the history, context and nature of the crime are also important. For example, a prisoner convicted of manslaughter explained that he modi-fied his less-than-valorizing story in prison ‘in order to be the hero’—a position valued by the masculine order of the prison (Connell 1995). This construction of a heroic narrative—far more heroic than the truth would reflect—afforded him higher social standing in the prison hierarchy. Parolees reported that sex-related convictions could not be presented in a positive light, in a way that generated respect or social approval among prisoners.

British researchers have found that sex offenders are particularly vulnerable in prison once other prisoners become aware of the nature of their convictions (Blagden and Pemberton 2010) and there is ample evidence in North America of sex offenders being murdered or violently attacked in prison because of their suspected or known convic-tions (see Groth 1983; Knopp 1984). Perhaps it is for these same reasons that scholars have found correctional officers often hold negative attitudes towards sex offenders as well (Weekes et al. 1995; Lea et al. 1999), thus suggesting assistance from officers in such violent situations may not be imminent. The fact that sex offenders are viewed as engag-ing in practices outsides the bounds of normative masculinity generates disgust and resentment from societal members, prisoners, and corrections professionals and para-professionals. The gender-subject position of an incarcerated sex offender is thus infe-rior to other non-sex-offending prisoners as he embodies a less ‘manly’ masculinity. He represents non-normative masculine ideals that are a far reach from hyper-masculinity, which leads to emasculation and abjection and makes him as a target for victimization.

In prison, a sex offender can exist, often temporarily, as an unexposed sex offender. Possessing sex-related convictions induces a profound fear of exposure for unexposed sex offenders during their incarceration, which is intensified for those in higher secu-rity prisons. This fear is intrinsic to their prison existence and permeates all realms of their experience that results from their knowledge of the harsh consequences sex offenders face when the general prisoner population learns of the sexual nature of their criminal acts. Thus, fear of exposure and its subsequent consequences can be used as a means of informal social control by other prisoners and, perhaps, even correc-tional staff. Being exposed as a sex offender is a fundamental event with vast negative implications for shaping the duration of the offender’s prison experience even if they move to protective custody, a new range or different institution. Moreover, it strips the


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offender of any opportunity to be accepted in the general prison population as they are pushed outside the bounds of normative masculinity.

Performing the masculine: the sex offender’s quest to pass

The charges and convictions of each offender entering an institution, even in recep-tion, may be unknown to other prisoners in the general population. Parolees with sex-related charges discussed their attempts to hide the nature of their convictions from other prisoners. Some explained that their first prison experience was essentially an effort to ‘pass’: an attempt to hide the true nature of their crimes from the other pris-oners and ‘make-it’ in the general population without the need of protective custody. Passing assists with ensuring their safety and asserting a more dominant, normatively masculine, gender-subject position. Respondents described two different ‘passing’ techniques that are used in isolation or combination. This involves self-presentation and the construction of a ‘viable’ story.

Gender performance entails not acting or ‘looking like’ what prisoners consider indicative of a stereotypical sex offender. Respondents with or without sex-related con-victions describe—without being probed or questioned—a stereotypical sex offender as a middle-aged tattoo-free Caucasian man that wears glasses. Thus, some sex offend-ers explained that they, if possible, tried to manipulate their appearance to look more like a ‘gangster’ or ‘biker’, or even just less like this stereotypical sex offender. They tried to look more ‘tough’ and aggressive in line with normative masculinities of hyper-masculine prison cultures. Bradley described a prisoner on his range who embodied a ‘tough guy biker’ look and remained unexposed for almost 18 months due to his hyper-masculine non-sex-offender image. Another black sex offender described hoping his skin colour would help him pass as a non-sex offender. He noted the ‘shock’ prisoners’ expressed when they discovered the nature and extent of his crimes:

One of the things that people were shocked about ‘was a black guy in for kiddie porn?’ You know, something’s not right. It kinda centered me out a little bit more as, unfortunately, your average child pornographer would be, you think, older, white man, not a—at the time I was like only 21, 22—young black guy.

As this example suggests, conceptions of the stereotypical sex offender are attached to broader societal conceptions of normative masculinities. The successful perfor-mance of (hetero)normative masculinity that is required to avoid the stigma of the sex-offender label is a significant source of anxiety and stress. All prisoners must perform their masculinity to assert status as they negotiate penal living. This becomes even more paramount for sex offenders given the precarious position they are placed within. Interviewees describe living with a constant fear of being discovered and wondering what will happen when they are eventually ‘out-ed’. Beyond their increased potential for victimization, their ‘out-ing’ nullified their ability to successfully perform any varia-tion of normative masculinity. Their gendered social positioning is then reduced to an inferior corporeality where they are stripped of any possible position of power, domi-nance or respectability.

Passing could also entail the creation of a hopefully viable ‘cover’ to explain their criminal history. Here, some sex offenders create a ‘story’—often a rather complicated


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story that eventually becomes confused—that allows them to appear somewhat ‘solid’ and save face among other prisoners. If they felt their crimes were more notorious or disturbing than most sex-related crimes, they may create very intricate stories that offer a heteronormative (but sexually profound) justification for their conviction in an attempt to pass. This assertion of heterosexuality serves to establish a gender-subject position more closely aligned with normative masculinity than their actual criminality would indicate. In this sense, some offenders performed a normative feminine subjec-tivity—consisting of being ‘soft’ and passive to the will of others—in order to avoid being seen as transgressing the normative masculinity of the prison. For example, a sex offender created a story to explain his charges that he hoped would be socially accept-able in the general prison population. He used his young age to his advantage and presented his story as his sex-related convictions were the result of being approached to make pornography while he worked as a male prostitute in his youth. This was in the hopes of convincing other prisoners that he did not make and distribute child pornog-raphy and that he was not ‘in for little kids’. His story presents his charges as a result of an unfortunate youth, living conditions and need for money, rather than the true socially volatile activities in which he participated.

In putting himself forth as an exploited sex worker and being a passive, victimized feminine subject, he actually reaffirms the normative masculinity of the prison. He is not challenging the heteronormative penal culture, but is subservient to the ide-als of masculinity as dictated within the hyper-masculine context while maintaining some semblance of masculine dignity by shaping his crime in a need for survival. In hiding his predilection towards paedophilia, he presents a more favourable gendered subject position within the masculine hierarchy than he would if he disclosed his actual crimes. In line with Connell and Messerschmidt (2005: 814), such actions represent a strategy of masculinity negation in itself, where ‘men can adopt hegemonic masculin-ity when it is desirable; but the same men can distance themselves strategically from hegemonic masculinity at other moments’ (Connell and Messerschmidt 2005: 841). Indeed, passing attempts evoke anxieties and fears of having true criminality exposed. Another interviewee, for example, described being anxious and terrified of ‘the other guys finding out my charges’ during his first few weeks in federal prison. Such feelings of uncertainty are disempowering for these offenders as they face the threat of being pushed outside the bounds of normative masculinity. Although useful attempts to pass, their stories or covers reveal that who they are as men and human beings is insufficient. They embody a failed masculine subject position that is reinforced as their fear of being exposed intensifies over time; they recognize they lack control and, as a result, are even less masculine.

Some prisoners tried to combine their story with a tough and dominant performativ-ity that equates to a ‘solid’ self-presentation. Other respondents, however, described how the sex offender’s status is often revealed when their fears and uncertainties surface through marked behavioural changes. To this end, a common strategy sex offenders employ to moderate the challenges of incarceration is to become ‘passive’. Masculine ‘solid’ prisoners consider this feminized performance a manipulative ploy, an enacted characteristic necessary to their criminal acts, as they must ‘lure’ their prey:

It’s really pathetic … this guy is probably a serial rapist or whatever, he’s killed kids or whatever, and this lady [staff is] just sitting there chatting. I’m like; ‘the staff are just as messed up as the guys here’.


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And I said to one lady before; ‘I can’t believe you sit there and socialize with these guys’ and she’s like; ‘oh yeah but they’re so so nice and they’re so friendly’ and I’m like ‘yeah, well how do you think they got their victims’.

As this parolee’s comment demonstrates, sex offenders are viewed as ‘weasels’ and ‘bitches’ that manipulate staff and other prisoners, assumedly in the same ways as they manipulate their victim(s). Sex offenders represent the forms of manipulation ostensibly found in women that are not permitted amongst men, thus becoming viewed as inferior as men. According to sex offenders, their response to routine antagonism and altercations is passivity, including adherence to the desire of others and remain-ing ‘muted’ in their interactions, letting others determine the ‘way things will be’. For example, a parolee explains that ‘a lot of guys in my situation, they kind of cower, cuz they don’t want that problem [conflict]. So they’re quick to walk away, but they don’t realize that that still could go against you …’. This passivity continues in the more sup-posedly ‘safer’ protective custody as prisoners with debts or informants continue to victimize sex offenders.

The utility of Butler’s concept of precarity and her approach to gender lies in expos-ing how the abject marker of sex offender places these individuals in an inferior subject position. As sex offenders enter the prison environment, they are placed in a signifi-cantly more precarious position, which makes them suitable targets for all forms of violence. While it may be obvious that prisons are precarious spaces, the concept of precarity reveals how sex offenders are differentially exposed to violence because of their inferior gender-subject position.

Methods of Exposure

Despite best efforts to suppress such information by sex offenders, their convictions fre-quently become known among the penal population and staff. Former prisoners reveal a variety of practices through which prisoners’ charges and convictions are exposed. The nature of the prison culture mandates that sex offenders are not welcome on gen-eral population ranges and, if they choose to be in the general population, they will experience physical and psychological victimization and theft. A seeming witch-hunt, a dramatic yet realistic descriptor, underlies practices that result in the criminality of sex offenders becoming ‘public’ knowledge. A small, but dangerous, group of correctional officers also participate in this witch-hunt. These officers, acting as petty sovereigns, do not accept sex offenders and use their knowledge and social positioning to facilitate the physical and psychological victimization of sex offenders. The practices used to expose sex offenders in the general prison population include (1) the actions and behaviours of corrections officers and (2) deception and confrontation on the part of prisoners.

Correctional officers qua petty sovereigns

Federal correctional officers work under the Correctional Service Canada (CSC) reg-ulations of ‘care, custody and control’. According to their job description, they are mandated to enhance ‘public safety by actively encouraging and assisting offenders to become law-abiding citizens, while exercising reasonable, safe, secure, and humane


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control’ (CSC 2012). Correctional officers’ occupational responsibilities are to pro-tect and ensure the safety of all those in their custody. Despite their paraprofessional status, they are insufficiently trained to perform tasks, such as those related to reha-bilitation and mental health, required to meet their responsibilities. Their position also ensures that they have access to confidential information about each offender, including the index crime for which they are currently sentenced. Although not all officers must or will see this information when performing their occupational respon-sibilities, they have access to it at their fingertips. It is at the discretion of each officer to determine whether she or he will investigate a prisoner’s criminal history or not. To maintain the safety of the entire prison population, persons working in admission must be aware of the offences of each prisoner during intake and consider this infor-mation when processing and placing them into custody. These officers are mandated to ensure sex offenders are given the opportunity, if available, to move into protective custody. By the nature of their job description, they must take the required precau-tions to maintain the safety of a sex offender. This is unless the offender opts to try to pass in the general population and thus refuses protective custody or other available precautions. Those who try to remain in the general population may later request a transfer, especially if their safety is threatened, and it then becomes the responsibility of the tending officer to ensure the prisoner is moved. The officers’ positioning as petty sovereigns is fear-inducing, as their actions—their discretion when adhering to this occupation responsibility—can have emasculating and life-threatening implica-tions for prisoners.

Despite the ‘ job’ requirement of ensuring prisoner safety, multiple respondents spoke openly about the select officers that threaten to either falsely or correctly expose an offender as a sex offender. Respondents without sex-related convictions explained encountering officers qua petty sovereigns who would threaten to lie about the nature of an individual’s charges to secure compliance to their demands. Sean, for example, described an experience where officers threatened to inform other prisoners that his charges, although a lie, were sex-related. This occurred after the officers in question ineffectively threatened him with physical violence:

They were like ‘Oh, we should crush you right now’. I’m like; ‘Oh, okay if you guys want to crush me then we can do it whatever’. They’re like ‘How about we tell other guys that you are on sex charges?’

As this example shows, the threat of publically exposing an offender was paramount for some, even self-identified ‘solid’ prisoners. The threat, without action, demonstrates the reanimation of a sense of freedom from occupationally imposed controls as offic-ers exert sovereign power over those in their custody despite the regulations govern-ing their employment. By exposing the criminality of sex offenders, these correctional officers place sex offenders in an inferior masculine position that is subject to scrutiny, violence and equated to ‘scum’.

While working in maximum or high-medium security facilities, some correctional officers use their discretion as petty sovereigns to expose the convictions of sex offenders to the greater penal population. Some officers were thought to despise sex offenders and treat them poorly: ‘Well they were mean and swearing and I said okay do whatever you want [to me].’ Respondents further explained that some officers wanted sex offend-ers to continue to suffer in prison:


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I was a little upset at some of their tactics, if you had to fill out a request form, you could actually see them [the officers] throwing it in the garbage. And it was hard, there were a few guards there … they think you’re trash.

As these examples begin to demonstrate, this is an often harmful form of internal policing conducted by select officers. Such practices make prison living a hardship in its own right.

Officers govern prisoners while being governed by their superiors, making each officer an agent deployed by tactics of power that they do not control. However, a partic-ularly harmful way to encourage the ‘punishment’ of sex offenders within the parame-ters of acceptable behaviours (i.e. acts they cannot get ‘caught’ and sanctioned for doing) for officers is to expose their crimes to other prisoners. According to parolees, officers deploy two strategies to inform others about a prisoner’s criminality: indirect telling or direct telling.

Indirect telling includes verbal slandering that indirectly implicates the sexual nature of a prisoner’s offences, including taunting a prisoner about ‘liking small children’ or forcing themselves on women because they ‘couldn’t get any’. Indeed, the heteronorma-tive penal context indicates that inability to ‘conquer’ women sexually and, worse yet, a need to turn to weak children to satisfy sexual urges represent masculine inferiority. These men are deemed pathetic and incompetent, and thus emasculated. This is per-formed purposefully in close proximity to other prisoners. Prisoners explain that some officers publically taunt or ‘chirp at’ a prisoner in ways that lead other prisoners to suspect that the victim of verbal attacks is essentially a sex offender trying to ‘pass’. One participant, a non-sex offender, described being called a ‘goof’ by an officer, which he knew would prompt other prisoners to question the nature of his criminality if he did not stand up to the officer and counter this claim with his ‘street resume’ (list of crimes that are solid), which he felt fortunate to have. These officers strive to create animosities towards particular prisoners within the prison population. They understand that sex offenders are regularly victimized in prison (another factor indicating their ‘weaker’ masculine status) and that some prisoners can be forced into particular behaviours via their falsifying threats. In their capacity as petty sovereigns, correctional officers utilize sovereign power, in deciding over the life and death of sex offenders—knowing or unknowing of the full impact of their actions. This is compounded by the prisoners’ awareness of the all-knowing capacities of officers and the fact that their words can create havoc, uncertainty and suspicion among other prisoners. With knowledge of the social implications of the sex-offender label, officers are able to effectively manage and even intentionally agitate prisoners. Indeed, name-calling itself when mixed with derogatory slurs associated with sex offenders may push solid prisoners to engage in vio-lent altercations as a strategy to perform their own normative masculinity and attempt to embody the hegemonic ideal within the penal environment. One avenue to this end is to overpower sex offenders who are awarded an inferior, less masculine, social posi-tion in prison. If altercations are restricted given the nature of confinement—that is, if the prisoner(s) is locked in a cell or the range is in lock-down—prisoners may become even more frustrated, heated and violent.

Indirect telling equates to sovereign violence and is a strategy that enables correc-tional officers to express their contempt for sex offenders without leaving behind tangi-ble evidence on the person or on camera that would necessitate a reprimand from their


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superiors. The officer in such circumstances makes it clear to anyone in earshot that the target is discredited and, by doing so, his masculine status is reduced and the nor-mative masculinity of the prison is reaffirmed. For example, Gerard describes waiting in line to be served a meal while incarcerated when an officer publically declared: ‘Oh, [Gerard] today is having burgers and fries, and little boys’. Suspicion, here, is aroused about the sexual nature of the prisoners’ offences yet repercussions for the officer are minimized. That is, despite the immense emotional evidence, physical evidence of indi-rect telling is null. Other officers are unlikely to ‘snitch’ on their colleague and other prisoners are not going to ‘help’ or even associate with a sex offender because of the normative and hegemonic masculinities that dictate prison culture and penal under-standings of acceptable behaviour. Such actions on the part of correctional officers are performed in a safe haven where they are removed from possible punitive action or sanctions. Yet, they still manage to elicit fear and uncertainty from the offenders and ensure the offenders are in an even more precarious state when in the company of select officers. Indeed, verbal barrages effectively police the bounds of normative masculinity by dictating to the ‘victim’ that they are ‘less of a man’, inferior in status and unworthy of respect.

The second strategy, direct telling, involves officers who directly inform prisoners about another prisoner’s sex-related convictions. Direct telling sometimes leads prison-ers to sources of evidence that confirm individual offences rather than implications that cannot be substantiated. Direct telling tends to be reserved for ‘true’ sex offenders. It epitomizes a hands-on-policing of normative masculinity, using a strategy that requires normatively masculine qualities (e.g. confidently, aggressively and directly working to expose truth), which can further emasculate the target if they counter the normative ideal by failing to ‘man-up’ once confronted. Some respondents describe how select offic-ers, often in higher security institutions, divulge to other prisoners the nature or specif-ics of a sex offender’s charges in conversation or intentionally handle the sex offender’s ‘paperwork’ (documents stating a prisoner’s criminal history) such that their convic-tions were visible to any prisoner in close proximity. A prisoner explains that ‘I’ve had guards show guys what you call “my paperwork” or “my card”. Some places, when you move around, you have to have a card. They’ve showed guys my card’. Showing ‘paper-work’, the improper handling of their documents, leaves little doubt in the minds of other prisoners about the nature of an individual’s conviction and reconstructs his social positioning as abject facing a precarious existence where he will, ineluctably, be the target of all forms of victimization.

Deception and confrontation

Participants that served longer periods of time incarcerated (ten or more years) describe a change in the acceptance of specific offenders in the general population. These men spoke of a time when any person who had physically or sexually assaulted a woman under any circumstances—including domestic—would be shunned in the gen-eral population and require protective custody. In the contemporary climate, domestic violence charges do not receive the same backlash. However, prisoners remain ‘picky’ about who is on the range. With the push towards an integrated prisoner population, physical violence towards women, particularly of the domestic variety, is tolerated while


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disgust and abjection are reserved for only those with sex-related criminality. The man-ifold forms of violence directed towards the perpetrator intensify as the age of the vic-tim decreases. Sex offenders with adult male victims are relatively unheard of among prisoners where adult victims tend to be thought of as exclusively female. However, sex offenders with adult male victims would uncontrovertibly be targets for violence; indeed, such realities would oppose the heteronormative penal environment and defy standards of normative masculinities.

‘Solid’ respondents explained that, in prison, it is vital to ensure sex offenders are not sharing their living space—a reality that suggests the value of dominance and het-erosexuality in the hyper-masculine environment. Prisoners are quick to ask about each other’s convictions:

Everybody likes to talk about everybody else, to a degree. You don’t talk bad about somebody behind there back, but it’s like; ‘oh, I know this guy, I see him walking around with this guy, who is he?’ … Quite honestly, the first thing you do when you get into population is you put your papers down and you show them exactly what you were charged with so they know whether you belong in population or Protective Custody.

This respondent’s words exemplify the root of the ploys developed to keep the range ‘free’ of sex offenders. Within the realm of deception and confrontation, two key strat-egies were more commonly discussed: fishing and direct confrontation. The first entails a prisoner ‘fishing’ to garner information from a suspected sex offender about their criminality. ‘Fishing’ can be honest, performed obviously in directed conversation, or embedded in a web of deception and breached trust. Fishing in directed conversation occurs when the suspected offender is honestly and directly probed for information about their criminal history and charges. The ‘fisher’ asserts a confident and asser-tive disposition reflective of his social positioning as he seeks to expose loopholes in their target’s story by asking pointed questions to reveal any inconsistencies and then continues to probe for details until their target ‘slips up’. In this context, sex offend-ers are described as being ‘wish-washy’ or ‘bull shitters’ when they cannot respond well to questioning about their ‘case’—they ‘crack’ under pressure and are thus ‘less of a man’. Given most federal offenders have had their stories tested during their arrest and conviction, it is expected that offenders have experience with probing and can easily handle some ‘fishing’. Thus, nervousness or anxieties around fishing itself indicate to seasoned prisoners that the individual in question has something to hide.

Prisoners that employ deceptive ‘fishing’ are malicious in intention and seek to gain and then breech trust. A participant confided that this form of fishing involves ‘guys try to gain favour and then try to get the truth out’. It is most harmful to the targeted pris-oner as it entails prisoners building a relationship based on some degree of trust with the suspected sex offender. They construct the illusion of a ‘safe’ environment so the offender opens up about his past, while the real intention is to encourage the prisoner to reveal his convictions or even charges confidentiality to a perceived ‘friend’. After this revelation occurs, their trust is violated and their secret is either immediately exposed or used as collateral for extortion. For example, multiple sex offenders, even repeat sex offenders, describe how ‘solid’ prisoners would pretend to be sex offenders when befriending other suspected sex offenders on their range. They explained that this deception is intended to create trust and convince the targeted prisoner to reveal his convictions. Even if the cir-cumstances surrounding the current prison sentence are based on ‘solid’ convictions, the


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prisoner’s criminal history and past convictions transgressing the normative masculinity of the prison culture overpowered their potentially ‘solid’ status and take precedence in determining their social positioning in the prison. Prisoners’ past sex-related convictions carry the abject marker as the failed embodiment of masculinity.

Direct confrontation is employed to reveal the nature of a prisoner’s offences, despite the fact that its utilization always creates a dynamic where the target needs to provide evidence immediately or would be deemed a sex offender. In some institutions, but not all, respondents describe instances of direct confrontation where institutionally issued ‘paperwork’ is used to verify that all prisoners on the range are ‘solid’. Paroled sex offenders describe this policy as the ‘worst thing the system has ever done’ because the ‘paperwork’ provides an easy and convenient way of uncovering their offences. In some prisons, ‘paper parties’ take place where all prisoners must immediately show their card or paperwork whenever a new prisoner is transferred onto a range or suspicion emerges in relation to a prisoner’s criminality. However, other interviewees explained that not all prisons used ‘paper parties’:

Interviewer: So they have little paper parties types of things?Respondent: [giggling loudly] Paper party? [chuckles] Did you just say that?Interviewer: I did say that.Respondent: [sly smiles and chuckles] OK, we can call it a paper party. [More seriously] Really, I’ve never heard of that. What kind of prison would that be ….Interviewer: [Prison X]Respondent: [Prison X], yeah, you need the paper there. You need to know who you are there.

As this excerpt demonstrates, each prison has a reputation regarding the types of pris-oners in custody, which makes diverse practices, such as ‘paper parties’, appear needed even when first met with mild ridicule.

Prisoners with ‘respectable’ convictions often utilize their paperwork to affirm their dominant masculine status and reassert the normative mandates of the masculine prison culture by ‘flashing’ their documents to remove any doubt about the extent of their poten-tial criminality. In contrast, a prisoner that does not readily present his ‘paperwork’ fails to present such a masculine status and instead creates an aura of suspicion regarding what he is trying to hide and why. Both performances buttress the normative masculinity of the prison culture. Those suspected of sex-related offences whose criminal past has yet to be confirmed will at some point, often early in their sentence, be confronted about their charges. In some institutions, prisoners expect paper work to be produced on demand to either confirm or reject any suspicions. Having spent years at one of these institutions, a respondent explains: ‘... at [a certain institution], they have paperwork parties. You get a couple new guys on the range and you’re like “Let’s see your paperwork” and if they can’t produce it, they gotta go.’ As this example demonstrates, failing to present paperwork is suitable grounds to impose the label of sex offender on a prisoner. Thus, after a ‘paper party’, a newly labelled sex offender should seek transfer immediately.

Discussion and Conclusion

In this article, we have demonstrated that the precarity faced by sex offenders in prison intensifies their potential for victimization. While a successfully passing sex offender may have a reduced risk of victimization in the general population while passing, they


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continue to exist in a constant state of anxiety and apprehension where they are con-cerned with the exposure of their convictions and victimization. It was shown that this prolongs an inevitable precarious existence, where the passing offender is eventually exposed and must face the forms of abjection and victimization illustrated.

Underpinning such exposure are penal constructions of normative masculinity, which invariably position sex offenders at the very bottom of the social ladder. The act of exposing a sex offender in prison, if done intentionally, is a way for ‘solid’ prisoners or even correctional staff to assert their own masculine dominance by making other prisoners the core targets of victimization. Prisoners who inadvertently invite suspi-cion or are involved in very high-profile cases are confronted almost immediately after entering the penitentiary. Other passing sex offenders can be exposed at any place and any time based on the actions of prisoners or staff. The consistent factor is simply that exposure subjected the offender to intensive risk, as participants reported sex offend-ers being at high risk for physical and psychological victimization in higher security prisons.

Our findings suggest that sex offenders are purposeful exposed by select correc-tional officers. Their actions reveal that they want to see a sex offender be punished for their offences against women and children. This direct and intentional act of revealing convictions—specifically index crimes—may allow officers to both police masculinity and feel that they have performed a ‘ just’ act—a way of securing vengeance for victims by further punishing the sex offender for his ‘evil’ acts. This, however, reveals a neces-sary area for future inquiry, as researchers should investigate the motivations from per-spective of officers for direct telling and the frequency of its practice. Former prisoners believe that, because many officers have children and/or wives who could be potential victims or perhaps were victims themselves of sexual abuse, they seek retribution by ensuring all prisoners are made aware of who is a sex offender in order to ensure he ‘pays’ for his crimes. Future researchers can focus on why select officers are thought to personally strive to expose sex offenders or to what degree officers have this agenda.

Nonetheless, the isolation, uncertainty and threat experienced by sex offenders are further intensified given that they often feel they cannot trust the correctional staff whose job is to protect them. These same persons increase the threat and potential for victimization. Some sex- and non-sex-offender participants reported being subjected to harassment, bullying or the target of malicious behaviour by certain correctional offic-ers. The risk posed by staff to expose a sex offender is also strengthened by their easy access to the personal and criminal information of each prisoner. Indeed, prisoners, due to their limited access to information via technology or media, must utilize more creative means to uncover the nature of a prisoner’s criminality. These strategies entail either deception or confrontation. When there exists a mutually agreed-upon target among prisoners, that prisoner will be victimized and extorted.

Utilizing Butler’s conceptualizations of precarity, abjection and petty sovereigns, this article contributes to extant analysis of Western federal penal institutions. As state-sponsored spaces of precarity, penitentiaries serve to expose certain offenders, espe-cially sex offenders, to extreme levels and forms of violence and victimization. Utilizing Butler’s post-structural analytic, comparative research across countries could be con-ducted to understand the interactive genesis of abjection of sex offenders in jails and prisons. Such inquiry could reveal how prisoners and correctional officers qua petty sovereigns across diverse settings work to expose sex offenders to manifold forms of


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violence. Building on the present work, future research could reveal the various man-dates of normative masculinity and how these mandates have continuities with the pre-sent work but vary in important ways across settings.

Overall, by bringing forth information about how the knowledge both underlying the rationale for exposing a sex-related conviction and for targeting a prisoner for vic-timization is garnered, our hope is to provide insight into challenges that must be overcome if penal policies are to successfully offer protection to incarcerated persons. Such findings can be used to improve the safety of all offenders convicted of a range of criminal behaviours and to direct education and training objectives for correctional staff working in prisons of diverse security classifications.

Funding

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Standard Research Grant Competition).

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