A leading criminologist draws on over 30 years’ experience working with sex offenders to propose a new way of understanding sexual crimes

The prevalence of sex crimes has become one of the most urgent, and most widely misunderstood, subjects of our times. We are living through a sea change in our attitudes to sex crimes, yet we continue to get things badly wrong in the way we respond to them. Drawing on over 30 years’ experience, Patrick Tidmarsh argues that we need to find a new way to understand, investigate and talk about these crimes. He forces us all to question our own prejudices and assumptions – about both victims and perpetrators – and to question the social, criminal and judicial systems that mean that so few of these crimes ever end in convictions.

Patrick Tidmarsh trains and lectures all over the world, helping police and other professionals to understand sexual offending, and to improve their responses to both victims and offenders. With calm authority and sensitivity, he sets out what has gone wrong, and proposes a ground-breaking new solution.