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Regulating Sexual Harm: Strangers, Intimates, And Social Institutional Reform, Allegra M. Mcleod

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The criminal regulation of sexual harm in the United States is afflicted by deep pathology. Although sexual harm appears before the law in a variety of forms—from violent rape, to indecent exposure, to the sexual touching by an older child of a younger child—the prevailing U.S. criminal regulatory framework responds to this wide range of conduct with remarkable uniformity. All persons so convicted are labeled “sex offenders,” and most are subjected to registration, community notification, and residential restrictions, among other sanctions. These measures purport to prevent the perpetration of further criminal sexual harm by publicizing the identities and restricting the …