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Constructing Hysteria: Legal Signals as Producers of Siting Conflicts Over Sexually Violent Predator Placements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Monica Williams
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Abstract

Sexually violent predator (SVP) statutes define some sex offenders as dangerous enough to be segregated from society, but then require their release into local communities. This article examines how decision makers and community members interpret and respond to this inherent contradiction during disputes over SVP placements. The article departs from traditional moral panic explanations of reactions to sex offenders by linking literature on local siting conflicts to insights from legal mobilization studies in order to understand the origins and features of community opposition to sex offenders. Data from three case studies of SVP placements in California suggest that interpretations of what I call legal signals, or implicit messages embedded in state laws, produced these conflicts. The findings shed new light on the role of law in siting conflicts and collective action by explaining how state laws facilitate communities’ exclusion from siting decisions, encourage local opposition, and disempower already marginalized communities.

Type
Articles
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 43 , Issue 3 , Summer 2018 , pp. 706 - 731
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2018 

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