CoSA-Ottawa’s Volunteers’ Subjective Experiences with ‘Sex Offenders:’ Taming the Monstrous
Bibliographic record
Abstract
People convicted of sexual offences are arguably one of the most marginalized criminal offender groups because both the general population and offender populations tend to have hardened views of these individuals (Spencer, 2009; Wilson & Prinzo, 2001). Circles of Support and Accountability Ottawa (CoSA-Ottawa) is an organization that helps people convicted of sexual offences reintegrate into society by challenging traditional forms of community reintegration. CoSA-Ottawa was founded on the principles of restorative justice, which are exemplified in their mottos “no more victims” and “no one is disposable.” The organization relies on the commitment and contribution of volunteers to assist with the reintegration process. While there have been various studies on CoSA from different perspectives (Duwe, 2012; Fox, 2014; Wilson, Picheca, and Prinzo, 2007; Wilson & Prinzo, 2001), there have been few studies directly focusing on CoSA-Ottawa volunteers through a critical lens. This study examines the subjective experiences of CoSA-Ottawa volunteers who work with people labeled as ‘sex offenders.’ The research was conducted using semi-structured interviews with six participants. Each interview transcript was transcribed and analyzed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The master themes that developed through this study include: the humanization of the monstrous, the reintegration and re-socialization through a helping relationship, and overall impacts of these relationships on CoSA-Ottawa volunteers. Using a governmentality and power conceptual framework, this thesis demonstrates how the relationships between the core members and volunteers are transformative and act as an extension of the carceral system. Further, this thesis illustrates that the supportive function of these relationships is explicit, while their governing function is implicit.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.003 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.017 | 0.018 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.007 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".