Читать книгу Social Work with Sex Offenders - Cowburn Malcolm - Страница 35

In the ‘West’, the (Christian) Church defined and dealt with sex crimes until the 19th century (Thomas, 2011, pp 39–59). Kirby (2013) describes the relevant biblical law (Leviticus, ch 20, verses 13–16) concerning sexual behaviour. A prime concern of 19th-century legislators in the UK was ‘vice’ and ‘social purity’ (Thomas, 2011); concerns with obscene publications (Act of 1857) and prostitution (campaigns of the Social Purity Movement) featured prominently. The language of the Bible and Christian morality defined and framed the laws relating to sex crimes in the 19th and 20th centuries; sex offences were seen as acts that contravened the dominant moral code. Acts were criminal because they contravened biblical stipulations about family relations (incest) or other men’s ‘property’ (rape), or because they contravened heteronormative standards of ‘decency’ (indecent assault and gross indecency). Perhaps, partly, because of the harsh sanctions stipulated against victims in Leviticus chapter 20, there was no victim perspective involved in the framing of this legislation. In England and Wales, ‘indecent assault’ and ‘gross indecency’ remained sex crimes until the Sexual Offences Act 2003 (SOA). In many ways, such nomenclature implies that ‘decency’ is the main victim of the crime – decency has been offended – and that the people who were sexually harmed by these acts (the real victims) were an incidental element in the offence. In England and Wales, the SOA revised the terminology and gave victims an active presence in the proceedings.