Review 2 of "Too close for comfort?: Impacts of working with the sex offender population"

Vote: Publish pending minor changes

[For votes to count, referees must reasonably explain why they voted as they did. Thus, 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.]

This paper provides important information that will contribute to the knowledge in the area. However, there are a number of writing errors (as in too much personalization and value-laden language on the part of the author, see below). More professional language has been suggested.

In addition, sections describing issues with CSC should be eliminated, in order to: 1) eliminate possible backlash to employees, despite their anonymity, which would potentially discourage any further attempts at such research; and 2) eliminate any perceived lack of objectivity on the part of the researcher. This is not a place to vilify ant organizations in particular.  

Finally, the “Findings and Discussions” section needs to be properly teased-apart into two sections, as the combination of the two together complicates the reading and appreciation of the work.

[Please put additional info below, as/if you see fit.]

Itemized and addressed progressively through the paper, as no pagination was provided.

1) Abstract: Remove the word “horrific”, as it is value-laden.

2) Last sentence in Introduction section: Remove “as I call them” (unprofessional) and change to “as they are often called”.

3) “Prevalence of Sex Offender Population” section: The sentence beginning with “For instance in 1991…”, need more recent/updated data on this, not just referring back to the 1990’s.

4) Also in same section, last sentence, remove the word “evil” and change to “dangerous”.

5) “Perceptions of Sex Offenders” section: First sentence, “population” should be “populations.”

6) Same section, sentence beginning with: “Not surprisingly…”, should end with “and had an overall negative view of the population.”

7) “Job Stress in Corrections” section: Third sentence beginning with “As a result…” Should read: “As a result, the “sex offender” label has created a heightened sense of perceived dangerousness.”

8) Also in same section, the above sentence should end that paragraph. The new paragraph should start with the sentence beginning with “Job satisfaction and job performance…”    

9) Also in the same section, the final sentence should remove the word “my” and replace it with “the (current study)”.

10) “Methods” section, second sentence. That is not true. See Parsonson & Alquicira (2019): “The Power of Being There for each Other:…”

11) “Data Collection” section: The rest of the paragraph, beginning with the sentence: “An acquaintance…” to the end of the paragraph should be removed. It is not only too opinionated, but can leave employees (even if anonymous) open to issues.

12) Also in the same section, next paragraph: Remove 1^st sentence (“In knowledge of CSC’s notoriety…”) for the same reasons as above. The remainder of that paragraph, beginning with: “That method was immediately scrapped” and ending with “She acted as the “gate keeper…” should be removed and rewritten more generically. No mention of CSC or value judgments should be made.

13) In the “Sample” section, in the first sentence after “Insert table 1 here”, “is six hours per day” should be “was six hours per day.”

14) In the section “Semi-structured Interviews”, 2^nd paragraph: remove “Keeping in mind how cautious CSC employees were…” The same goes for the sentence “This strategy allowed participants…”, change “CSC” to “their organization.”

15) In the section “Online Survey”, the first paragraph should be broken into two paragraphs, starting with the sentence: “The first part of the survey…”

16) In the same section, in the sentence beginning with “The next set of questions…”, should be “consisted”, not “consist”.

17) In the section “Ethical Considerations and Analytical Strategy”, the first sentence should change “involves” to “involved”.

18) In the same section, remove “particularly among CSC employees.”

19) In the final paragraph of that section, “CSC” should be changed to “organizational.”

20) The “Findings and Discussion” section should be properly divided into “Results” and a “Discussion” sections.

21) In this section, in the paragraph beginning with “Additionally, participants discussed how difficult…”, the word “me” in the 2^nd sentence should be removed.

22) In the section “A Darker World”, in the paragraph beginning with “Being constantly exposed to…”, “horrific and atrocious” should be changed to “potentially upsetting (cases).”

23) Similarly in the final paragraph of that section, “depraved” should be removed, possibly changed to “difficult.”

24) In the section “Secondary Trauma”, in the first sentence “horror” should be changed to “graphic.”

25) In the section “Perceptions of Sex Offenders”, the later paragraph beginning with “Interestingly, female participants…” notes that none of the male participants mentioned this. It is important to remind and note that there were very few male versus female participants, and this result may be an artifact of the imbalance between the genders.

26) In the same section, in the paragraph beginning with “Sex offenders, are no doubt…”, again remove the word “depraved.”

27) The sentence following the above-mentioned, beginning with “This study explored the impacts…” to the end of that paragraph belongs near the end of a Discussion section.

28) In the section “Limitations”, which would go near the end of a Discussion section after “Implications”, “my participants” should be changed to “the participants.”

29) In the “Implications” section, which should go at the end of the Discussion and before “Limitations”, the final paragraph, beginning with “Furthermore, results from this study…” should be removed.