Review 2 of "Shame and Justice: Partners of Individuals on Sex Offense Registries Encourage Policy Reform"

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.]

• I really enjoyed reading this well-written paper. I have never heard the term “courtesy stigma” and it makes perfect sense in this context. I applaud the authors for delving into a rarely discussed aspect of collateral consequences of the criminal justice system and capitalizing on 1 open ended survey question.

• I would suggest creating a Table 2 that includes an overview of the primary themes and sub-themes and how they were distributed across the survey. Knowing the percentage or number of respondents who identified each theme would be nice to be able to see how “popular” each theme was across respondents, including making some sense of which of the primary themes were most important to this group. 

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

Minor edits:

• 2^nd paragraph of literature review, 1^st sentence. I think you’re missing “individuals” (or some identifier) after “registered”

• Looks like you’re missing income in Table 1.

• Table 1- are these the sample demographics or the full survey’s demographics? I would make that clear somewhere in the table or as part of the title.

• You used Respondent #65’s quote, beginning with “I would STRONGLY advise...” three times under different themes. Not a big deal, but if you have another quotation to evidence the “isolation” or “proposed removal” themes, I suggest using them.

• Apologies if I missed it, but you should note somewhere in the data section that all responses were anonymous and you’re using a numbered system to “identify” respondent quotes.