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  • Strangers in Our Midst: Sexual Deviancy in Postwar Ontario
  • Joan Sangster
Strangers in Our Midst: Sexual Deviancy in Postwar Ontario. By Elise Chenier. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008. Pp. 384. $77.00 (cloth); $36.00 (paper).

Elise Chenier has produced a compelling discussion of the construction of the male sexual deviant in post–World War II Ontario, Canada, a topic that resonates with contemporary debates, always contentious, about the treatment of male sex offenders. Indeed, it would appear from Chenier’s work that in the postwar period, there did not exist only one punitive “lock them up” response to these offenders, but rather there was a range of social, medical, and legal responses to sexual deviancy; moreover, some commentators had quite optimistic views on the possibility of treatment and rehabilitation for sex offenders.

Strangers in Our Midst is extensively researched and effectively presented. It speaks to a number of fields within Canadian and, more broadly, North American history, including medical, social, sexual, and legal history, and it [End Page 334] offers genuinely new perspectives on the history of social efforts to categorize, understand, and deal legally with the “sexual psychopath.” Chenier traces the evolution of efforts to understand and treat the sex offender in the postwar period, looking not only at expert discourses but also at legal reform, penal practices, and popular pressure groups. It is this breadth as well as Chenier’s command of a range of sources, debates, and historiographies that make the book so impressive.

In the first section of the book, “Theories,” Chenier explores the social construction of the category of sexual deviancy, looking at medical and psychiatric writing and its relationship to the law in Britain, Canada, and the United States. Legislation dealing with the sexual psychopath, she argues, emerged in this period because of specific historical conditions—the baby boom, rise of mental health experts, anxiety about masculinity, and so on—but it was also the culmination of two other long-standing and intersecting factors: first, the evolution of medical/psychological thinking about sexuality and crime and, second, a reform tradition that favored rehabilitation over punishment. This section ends with a discussion of the public debate engendered by the Royal Commission on the Sexual Psychopath established by the Canadian federal government in 1954. Experts welcomed this opportunity to showcase their professional expertise in the area, and while some urged decriminalization of homosexuality, others continued to construct homosexuality as “deviance” as well as associating sexual predators with “stranger danger” rather than family members, despite evidence to the contrary. Perhaps the most interesting chapter deals with citizen groups formed through widespread public anxiety about sexual predators. Focusing especially on the female-dominated Parents Action League, Chenier argues that previous interpretations erroneously assumed these groups were reactionary in outlook while, in fact, “parent activism around sex crime was an exercise in social citizenship, not a disproportionate, hysterical response to a media-induced phenomenon” (46). While the women in this organization certainly drew on some aspects of the dominant ideology that associated women with family care, they were progressive in their demands for scientific research and treatment for sexual offenders.

In the second section, “Practices,” Chenier looks at the categorization of, the debates about, and the treatment of sex deviants within Ontario’s correctional institutions. Drawing productively on prison records as well as administrative sources, she also examines the sexual culture within men’s prisons. In the latter case, she argues that compulsory heterosexuality profoundly shaped prison culture and treatment of offenders, indicating how powerful and pervasive this ideology was—even when women were absent. She says little about race and racialization, however, leading one to surmise that these were simply less salient categories in her research. Chenier is adept at pointing out the tensions and debates even within expert circles concerning treatment (and punishment) practices: correctional and medical personnel did [End Page 335] not always agree, she indicates, and programs could have unintended effects. Always attentive to complexities and nuance, she highlights the contradictions of postwar medical and reform thinking about treating offenders as curative ideas were ignored or played out in repressive ways within the penal system, ultimately solidifying relations of power and...

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