Review 3 of "Forced Interactions with Sheriff Deputies Over Time and their Influence on Stigma and Self Identities among Individuals Convicted of Sex Crimes"

Vote: Publish pending minor changes

[Please explain your vote. If you voted to publish pending minor changes, specify each change, why it is needed, and, possibly, how it should/could be done.]

·        Explain: This paper is a strong contribution to the field in which we are constantly trying to navigate the label of “sex offenders” for a group of individuals trying to reenter society post-conviction. The authors recognize the internal and external validations associated with the label and how law enforcement can help to reinforce both. There are no real concerns with the literature review other than it being a little long. However, that’s not a breaking point for me.

·        A minor item – in the methodology, the authors stated that they restricted the analysis to only those who were no longer on probation/parole. I wonder why that was done if these participants were already interviewed. One could understand simply not interviewing them due to the supervision restrictions, but I am unsure of the reasoning why you limited your final sample to these individuals. It could be argued that being on supervision might influence the internalization even more because they are active cases. I would like to see this decision being justified as you already have the interviews completed.

o   As a follow-up, the authors do address this issue later on. My concern was addressed.

·        The methodology is solid and the authors did a great job of explain their thematic coding approach within the lens of grounded theory. There is strong justification for this approach and the authors acknowledge some of the issues with this type of methodological choice.

·        The bolded paragraph right before the Results section is one of the strongest contributions of the methodology section in this paper. I think this is the crux of the paper and really informs the reader about the aims of the manuscript.

·        The use of the specific quotes helps to humanize the thematic coding. Right away you can see some of the mitigation techniques that the ICSOs are using to downplay their role in the events. The results are organized well, show the longitudinal aspects of the study well, and incorporates strong findings.

·        Overall, this was a strong paper that contributes to the field. I enjoyed reading it and hope to see it published in this journal.