Protectors of Society: Understanding the Impact of Courtesy Stigma on the Experiences of Volunteers Working With Individuals Convicted of Sexual Offences

Abstract

Volunteers are integral to the criminal justice system. For some, this involves providing support in the community to those convicted of sexual offences, which has been found to reduce the risk of reoffending. Currently, the impact on volunteers of working within this context is not well understood, despite the significant stigmatisation of those convicted of sexual offences. This study aimed to address this gap through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, focusing on how ‘courtesy stigma’ (Goffman, 1968), a type of stigma-by-association, impacted on this experience. Eleven volunteers within one organisation were interviewed. Volunteers strongly identified with the volunteer role, and stigma served to strengthen their role identity as individuals who helped those no-one else would help. Participants also exhibited some maladaptive coping strategies and symptoms indicative of burnout. These results contribute significantly to the small body of work on volunteer role identity, stigmatisation, and the social and psychological impacts of volunteer association with a highly stigmatised population.

Keywords

volunteering stigma role identity burnout individuals convicted of sexual offences

Introduction

In many countries, volunteers play a key role in criminal justice systems, delivering core rehabilitation and resettlement services, and working across victims, witnesses, those convicted of offences, the police, judges, and courts (Millie, 2019; Tomczak & Buck, 2019). The benefits of these volunteers for the criminal justice system are well documented, including enhanced diversity, cost-effectiveness, and improved confidence in the criminal justice system (see Meek et al., 2010). In addition, it has been argued that volunteers provide an important ‘bridge’ to aid reintegration between the prison and the community (Bryans et al., 2002; Clinks, 2017) by reducing social isolation and providing pro-social networks of support, which have been shown to be a central factor in reducing the risk of reoffending (de Vries Robbé et al., 2014; Willis & Grace, 2008, 2009). This provision of social support and community connection is often cited as the main benefit of using volunteers in reintegration programmes for those convicted of sexual offences. Individuals convicted of sexual offences are a highly stigmatised group (Cubellis et al., 2017; Shackley et al., 2014), and there is considerable community concern about having someone convicted of a sexual offence living in their communities, working next to them, or being part of their social networks (Burchfield & Mingus, 2008; Willis et al., 2013). This means that, when released from prison, an individual convicted for sexual offences is more likely to face social isolation and a lack of adequate social support; factors that may increase their risk of reoffending (Ward & Stewart, 2003).

Community-based volunteer programmes, such as Circles of Support and Accountability (CoSA), provide invaluable practical, relational and social support to an individual convicted of sexual offences as they transition into the community (Hoing, Vogelvang et al., 2015; Wilson, McWhinnie et al., 2007; Wilson, Picheca et al., 2007). CoSAs can now be found in many countries but have their roots in restorative justice philosophy, aiming to provide both understanding and accountability through ‘a relationship of support’ (Höing et al., 2011, p.19). Eligible individuals are referred to this service towards the end of their prison sentence and will meet with a small group of volunteers to gain support, practical advice and to build relationships and social skills in a safe environment (Hanvey et al., 2011). Over time, the frequency of meetings will reduce until the individual has developed the necessary skills to manage their own risk in the community. This is referred to as a ‘circle’ due to the shape formed around the individual (who becomes known as a ‘core member’ when accepted into the programme); made up of 4–6 rigorously selected and highly trained volunteers from the local community. A Volunteer Co-Ordinator acts as a mediator and facilitator for the circle, and other professionals involved with the individual, such as probation officers and social workers, are often invited to meetings to share the individual’s progress and allow for risk information or concerns to be shared by volunteers (Bates et al., 2013). Despite a limited research base on these programmes, they appear to be effective in terms of reducing reoffending rates when compared to control groups (Bates et al., 2013; Wilson, McWhinnie et al., 2007; Wilson, Picheca et al., 2007) and have been associated with positive outcomes for core members, including improved self-esteem, social and communication skills (Hӧing, Vogelvang et al., 2015).

Volunteer Experiences of Working with those Convicted of Sexual Offences

While the benefits of such volunteer-led programmes to the criminal justice system and the person convicted of offences are clear, the benefits for the volunteer are not as well understood. There is a significant gap in research on those who volunteer within the criminal justice system more generally, and with those convicted of sexual offences specifically (Hӧing, Bogaerts et al., 2015; Wilson et al., 2010). This is problematic given that their volunteering experience is more complex than most (Lowe & Willis, 2019). Baum and Moyal’s (2018) research found that working with this group was emotionally demanding and potentially traumatising, as workers had to listen to offending histories and fantasies in graphic detail. Although this study looked specifically at paid workers, volunteers may face similar challenges. This can lead to vicarious trauma, including stress and rumination about the individual convicted of offences between meetings, placing volunteers at risk of burnout (Hӧing et al., 2014). There are therefore important questions about the impact of volunteering with those convicted of sexual offences on volunteers, as well as how this impact is or should be managed by volunteering organisations in ways that mitigate its impact (McCartan, 2016; van Rensburg, 2012).

Research on volunteering more generally does provide some insight here, and there is much evidence that volunteering can be protective for physical (Cole & Macdonald, 2011) and psychological health and wellbeing (Piliavin & Siegl, 2015), can improve quality of life (Cattan et al., 2011), reduce loneliness (Joloza, 2013), and improve community connection and resilience (Gray & Stevenson, 2019). Some of these findings are echoed in the small body of work with CoSA volunteers in the UK, Canada, and New Zealand (e.g., Höing, Bogaerts et al., 2011; Lowe & Willis, 2019; McCartan, 2016; Wilson et al., 2007), which demonstrates high levels of volunteer satisfaction, mental wellbeing and self-worth for this group, with levels of burnout and secondary trauma being low. Although, it should be noted that some of these findings are based on small sample sizes and low response rates (e.g., Hӧing, Bogaerts et al., 2015) and only included active volunteers, meaning that those who stopped volunteering were not represented, possibly due to experiencing significantly negative situations or burnout causing them to cease their voluntary work. Moreover, McCartan (2016) points out that while the volunteers in his study were overall satisfied with their volunteering experience, they also tended to compartmentalise their work with CoSA as a protective mechanism against possible negative responses from others, in that they were cautious in telling other people that they volunteered to work with those convicted of sexual offences (see also Lowe & Willis, 2019).

This raises important questions about the degree to which volunteers working with those convicted of sexual offences are at risk of the negative impacts of stigmatisation due to the profoundly negative attitudes held towards the individuals they work with. While there is no single agreed-on definition of stigma, the classic conceptualisation is that put forward by Goffman (1963), who defined stigma as a negative attitude towards an individual based on a distinguishing characteristic they hold, with two major consequences: status loss and social rejection. Importantly, Goffman explained that ‘the problems faced by stigmatised persons spread out in waves of diminishing intensity among those they come into contact with’ (p.30), introducing the concept of ‘courtesy stigma’ to explain how those associated with a stigmatised individual may similarly be stigmatised, due to their challenging of societal norms through their acceptance of that individual (Corrigan & Miller, 2004). This is distinct from vicarious stigma, which refers to the observation of stigma, and its negative effects on an individual, by those close to them (Corrigan & Miller, 2004).

Currently, there is very limited research on the impact of courtesy stigma on volunteers; although, the limited evidence that does exist highlights some of the negative costs of volunteering in contrast to its rewards. For example, studies of volunteers working with people living with HIV/AIDS highlight how courtesy stigma can result in embarrassment and difficulties with families and friends, in ways not encountered in other functionally similar volunteer roles (Dwyer et al., 2013; Snyder et al., 1999). Moreover, concealment seems to be a coping mechanism that has been found across other volunteering contexts. For example, White and Gilstrap’s (2017) study with hospice volunteers also found that to overcome issues relating to stigma, volunteers silenced themselves by avoiding discussions with family and friends and using euphemisms to conceal their volunteer activities. As highlighted in McCartan’s (2016) study this could easily be the case for individuals working with those convicted of sexual offences too, and it is important to understand how this relates to support needs for this group more broadly.

More generally, there is much research that has highlighted the potentially damaging impact of stigma on group members’ well-being (Major & O'Brien, 2005), positioning stigma as a ‘Social Curse’ that may deny necessary support to group members (Bowe et al., 2018; Kellezi & Reicher, 2012; Kellezi et al., 2018; Stevenson et al., 2014). Additionally, research in other areas, e.g., with professionals who work with people convicted of offences, highlights the importance of support from social networks to manage negative psychological effects related to vicarious trauma (Hatcher & Noakes, 2010; Severson & Pettus-Davis, 2013). We also know that these social psychological processes are critical for how volunteering benefits accrue, in the sense that they impact on wellbeing, satisfaction, as well as how well volunteers feel they could cope with challenges (Bowe et al., 2020; Gray & Stevenson, 2019). However, there are questions about whether some of these social psychological processes, e.g., social support and social/community identification, that act as supportive (or ‘buffering’) mechanisms are available to volunteers working with stigmatised groups, and what the impacts of this might be.

The Current Research

Given the gaps identified in our understanding of those choosing to volunteer with people convicted of sexual offences, the present research aimed to understand the lived experiences of volunteers working within a CoSA organisation in the UK. While the focus of the research was not initially on their experiences of stigma, it soon became apparent that courtesy stigma was a key feature of their experiences, and therefore became a key part of our research focus. We adopted the approach of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), which is a qualitative methodology developed within psychology which aims to gain an in-depth understanding of how individuals make sense of key life experiences (Smith, 2004; Smith et al., 2009). The IPA approach has been used predominantly in health psychology research (e.g., Smith, 2004), but has recently been adopted by researchers in many domains, in recognition of the usefulness of this approach in examining specific experience of a specific participant in a specific context (Eatough & Smith, 2017; Smith & Osborn, 2015). IPA’s theoretical underpinnings (hermeneutics, phenomenology and ideography) promote a focus on peoples’ subjective experiences and the meanings they ascribe to their lived world and how they relate to it (Langdridge, 2007). It is therefore a useful method to understand the lived reality of choosing to volunteer with those convicted of sexual offences, and how this volunteer experience is shaped by experiences of courtesy stigma. In doing so, we provide an in-depth insight into this under-researched area.

Method

Recruitment and Sampling

The IPA approach favours a small homogenous sample who share a similar experience, whereby the idiographic accounts of individuals can be illuminated, while accommodating commonalities across the group (Smith et al., 2009). Given this, we chose to recruit participants within the same CoSA organisation to ensure they had the same experiences of training and support. Eleven volunteers (six women, five men) took part: ten were active volunteers and one was a previous volunteer who was currently inactive. We purposively recruited for inactive volunteers, as we had identified this as a key gap in previous research. The sample size was selected, based on recommendations by Smith et al. (2009), to allow for sufficient and meaningful analysis of each case. Participants were recruited through adverts sent out by Volunteer Co-Ordinators (five participants), and through social media groups for CoSA members (six participants). Volunteers ranged in age from 22 to 81 and all identified as White British. Active participants had on average been volunteering within this organisation for four years and had completed an average of two groups each. There are no prior publications that use any of the data in this research.

Data Collection

Data were collected using in-depth, semi-structured interviews, lasting on average over an hour. Interviews are the recommended method for IPA studies, as they allow scope for the interview to be participant-responsive and flexible, giving the participant the opportunity to articulate their experience as they wish and present an accurate representation of relevant events (Smith et al., 2009). Interviews were conducted both face-to-face (six participants) and over Skype (five participants). Our research question was broadly explorative, focused on the lived experiences of being a CoSA volunteer. To address this question, we developed a semi-structured interview schedule which asked questions about participants experience of various parts of the volunteer process, including recruitment, training, positive and negative experiences within the circle and their support networks. As discussed above, we did not specifically ask questions about stigma or courtesy stigma, though these concepts became key to the analytic process (see below). The full interview schedule can be found in Appendix A.

Data Analysis

Data were analysed according to the principles of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), as detailed by Smith et al. (2009). Each transcript was analysed individually and fully before moving on to the next one to maintain the focus on each participant’s individual story before attempting to make any comparisons between participants; in keeping with the idiographic nature of IPA research (Smith, 2004). Transcripts were first coded line-by-line, with a focus on the descriptive, linguistic, and conceptual elements of the data. Emergent themes were also noted, ensuring the complexity of the data was maintained. The next stage involved finding connections across these lower-level themes, to create super-ordinate themes. Emerging super-ordinate themes were frequently compared with the transcript to ensure they accurately represented the participant’s experience, employing the ‘double hermeneutic’ (Smith et al., 2009, page 3) principle to ensure that the researcher’s interpretations were grounded within the original data. The final stage was to look for patterns across transcripts. Three themes resulted from this process.

Ethics

Ethical approval to undertake this study was obtained from the University of Winchester and gateway approval for participant access was confirmed and approved by the organisation involved. Written consent was obtained during face-to-face interviews before the interview commenced, and participants were asked to affirm their consent verbally whilst being audio recorded in all interviews. No incentive was offered to volunteers for participation, and they were assured that participating in this study would have no impact on their current position as a volunteer. Confidentiality and anonymity have been strictly maintained throughout. No funding was received to conduct this research and the authors had no financial interests in the research.

Reflexivity

Fundamental to an IPA approach, and the authors phenomenological epistemological stance in this research, is the need for researchers to reflect on their own beliefs, experience and culture, and the impact these may have on the research process (Willig, 2008). At the time the research was completed, the first author was a postgraduate student in Forensic Psychology (supervised by the second author) and had previously worked with people convicted of sexual offences, which participants were aware of. Such experiences will have provided a pre-existing set of beliefs and assumptions about the nature of working with this group. To guard against such assumptions taking over the ‘life-world’ of our participants, we deliberately took a discovery-oriented approach, seeking to understand contradictions and negative (as well as confirmatory) evidence. The team also discussed all analyses at all stages, examining all emerging themes and interpretations to ensure they remained close to the voices of the participants.

Results

Analyses resulted in three super-ordinate themes, which were core to the experience of volunteering with those convicted of sexual offences. In addition, we focus on one particular case of burnout, as an exceptional case of what happens when things go wrong. Each of these is discussed in more detail below.

“There Must Be Something Wrong With You”: Negotiating Courtesy Stigma

The negative perception of those convicted of sexual offences, and the resulting ‘courtesy stigma’ experienced by volunteers working with this group, was an overarching theme that ran across the data; despite this not being a key concept at the outset of the research, or a question we asked in the interviews. Participants were acutely aware of public prejudices towards these individuals, and for some volunteers, this placed them as outsiders – or at least outliers - within their families and local communities. For example:

“I think the main thing is, I couldn’t do that, and I don’t really understand why on earth she would want to. They don’t quite say, there must be something wrong with you, but they don’t understand, you know, where it comes from…my husband has struggled. He has struggled in the sense of judging because society judges. Some of the offences, particularly when they lead to murder, are horrendous.” [Participant 4].

As indicated in this extract, it was often the case that those within a volunteers’ wider social circle could not understand why the volunteer would commit to such work, unless there was something ‘wrong’ with them. Moreover, this was not always confined just to volunteers, but also could extend beyond the volunteers to their families, as with Participant 4’s husband in the extract above. This demonstrates the ways in which volunteers working with individuals convicted of sexual offences (and their families) can themselves directly experience courtesy stigma. However, it also demonstrates the ways in which public stigmatisation can, for some volunteers, lead to a fear of (and inherent anticipation of) courtesy stigma, based on their knowledge that their work would not be understood by others. Indeed, the fact that public stigmatisation could take a much more sinister turn was acknowledged by the volunteers. Across the sample, there was additional recognition of the fact that negative stories in the newspaper about individuals convicted of sexual offences could promote and stoke up further negative reactions, in unpredictable ways, resulting in a fear of being ‘found out’. For example:

“…when I was doing that group it was in the newspapers at the time obviously what we did as [volunteers], you know, trying to support, and risk assess sex offenders, and it was quite frowned upon…if we’re found out to work with [the organisation] we knew there would be quite a big outcry. I mean, the effect that could have on us.” [Participant 7].

As highlighted in McCartan (2016), one of the main ways that volunteers managed their fear of this courtesy stigma was by limiting and closely managing the ways in which they chose to tell others about their voluntary work. Some told very few people, whilst others told a few close family and friends, or spent time gauging what the audience reaction was likely to be before confiding: “I would always be very conscious, especially if I was talking about it in a group of people who I don’t know the background or whatever, to be very sensitive of it in the way in which I describe it.” [Participant 3].

Where people were willing to share, they often spent time actively choosing what information to reveal to others, e.g., by framing it as work with people convicted of offences in general, but not necessarily sexual offences. Or participants were careful to reframe their involvement to focus on the more positive aspects (e.g., preventing further victims) and highlighting the positive influence that their work has in the community (e.g., managing risk) in order to avoid the possibility of experiencing courtesy stigma. For most, these strategies were very successful in protectively shielding them from the negative reactions of others. However, it was sometimes problematic for participants to negotiate, and some spoke of the psychological impacts of having to maintain silence. Participant 1, for example, describes a workplace incident where colleagues were speaking in stereotyped and negative ways about ‘sex offenders’, where he chose not to correct them: “They weren’t talking about [the organisation] specifically otherwise I would have done it, but it’s, kind of, like, I kind of felt, actually, it wasn’t really worth it, given that I’d got to work in the environment.” Participant 1 is a strong advocate of the work that he does as a volunteer, and not feeling able to carry that advocacy into the unpredictability of the workplace left him feeling conflicted and like he had not been able to be authentic in this context. This highlights how the identity related aspects of being a volunteer can conflict with other, separate, social identities in ways that can be difficult for people to manage.

While most participants spoke of how they actively managed talking about their voluntary role with others, there were some participants for whom actively speaking out about their work had a different significance. Participant 11, for example, who was most vocal about his voluntary work, strongly advocated speaking out about the organisation to educate others:

Interviewer: “Do you think people are quite ignorant to the existence and the work of [the organisation]?”

Participant 11: “Yes I think they are….it behoves, it behoves everybody involved in that whether they’re volunteers or professionals to talk about their, their motivation and their thinking about, and their satisfactions.”

In this extract, we see a very different orientation to the stigma of working with those convicted of sexual offences. Participant 11’s use of the word ‘behove’ indicates the innate responsibility he has allocated to himself – and to others - to speak about their voluntary work to bring about transformation and change in public attitudes towards those convicted of sexual offences. In the main, this perspective is based on the idea that people’s negative prejudices and attitudes are due to a lack of knowledge about sexual offences, and therefore that a significant proportion of people simply did not have the necessary knowledge to challenge their stigmatised views. Therefore, his insistence that volunteers should speak to outsiders places them in an educator role capable of transforming negative opinions and stereotypes. While this perspective was quite rare across the participants, some did speak of how ‘speaking out’ did in fact result in some positive outcomes, for both the participant and those they are speaking to: “But then, after five minutes talking about it and being asked questions, there, actually there’s a level of, greater level of interest and appreciation and the fact that, yes, these are human beings at the end of the day.” [Participant 2]. In this way, our participants resist the dominant public narrative within which their voluntary work resides, and instead reframe it as something positive and beneficial.

‘Protector of Society’: Negotiating a Volunteer Identity

While not all our participants had volunteered with people convicted of offences before, all of them had held previous volunteering roles and all evinced a strong volunteering identity, centred on wanting to help those in need. When discussing their involvement in CoSA, this was often described as being a continuation or extension of this previously (and firmly) helping volunteering identity, as “another piece into my overall jigsaw.” [Participant 2] and “just a continuation, it’s just who I am anyway.” [Participant 1]. Thus, for these participants, volunteering with those convicted of sexual offences was not seen as something out of the ordinary in identity terms, but rather as congruent with a long-held volunteering identity formed in other contexts. As described by Participant 2: “I wanted to make a contribution. That’s what I’ve always wanted to do.”

However, beyond the desire to help others, most of our participants also actively constructed a volunteering identity that moves beyond ‘helping others’ to ‘helping others that no-one else will help’. This sentiment was echoed by almost all the participants, though not always in the same way. For some, this volunteer identity aligned with their faith’s (mostly Christian) beliefs and values, in terms of working with marginalised and stigmatised groups. While for others, it related strongly to a belief in restorative justice and/or the ethics of rehabilitation. However, all our participants were personally invested in the idea of themselves as someone who could provide help and support where others could not or would not. For example:

“I think it can be very easy for us as a society just to shun certain groups and not try and help them, and I think that’s certainly the case with sex offenders. Yeah, it made a lot of sense to me, and I like the ethics behind it.” [Participant 3]

“It’s not an area that one, that most people want to be involved in, want to identify themselves with or even imagine themselves into, so I think it’s a bit about privilege, and the fact that one can make a contribution.” [Participant 11]

For our participants, the particular nature of this volunteering identity – as someone who provides help and support where others would rather not – was linked to an increased satisfaction and sense of pride in their work, further reaffirming and ‘extending’ their pre-existing volunteering identities, as volunteers who fix things others will not. Many participants were motivated to volunteer by a desire to help others, so this increased satisfaction, pride and sense of privilege gained from the knowledge that they were doing work that no-one else wanted to do. Indeed, for some this was seen as a clear benefit of the role (as Participant 11 above), in that it provided life experiences that no-one else would be able to experience due to their stigmatised opinions about people convicted of sexual offences.

It is clear that – at least part – of the satisfaction that these volunteers get from their role stems from its unique nature, and their intense personal investment in its uniqueness. However, as noted in the section above, this can also work to set them apart from, or in active conflict with, their social networks in important ways. One of the other impacts is the increased sense of responsibilisation among the volunteers. A sense of personal investment of being the only one who can help also leads to an increased sense of responsibility for providing that help (and providing it well), with significant risks to the community should they fail. As Participant 7 clearly summarises: “We don’t want another victim.” Many spoke of how this provided them with a uniquely responsible role within their communities and society at large, further reinforcing the importance of the work that the volunteers do, and the immense sense of pride that volunteers get from being able to help these individuals and their communities in this way. However, it is also the case that this sense of responsibilisation is not without its own pressures. Ultimately, the safety of the community is placed in the hands of these volunteers; a small group of individuals who are doing work that others will not do. As Participant 6 states: “The community don’t really want to get involved with fixing these issues, they just want them fixed.” However, being the person who fixes it is not without its costs, as we will explore in the next section.

“I Do Actually Find it Quite Tiring”: Coping

As part of the therapeutic contact, people convicted of sexual offences may speak about their offences, sometimes in detail. It is hard to imagine what volunteers might have to hear, especially as the victims of many of the core members are children. However, it is clear across our interviews that the impact of volunteering with these individuals was large and often extended into their home lives. For example:

“…so, I do actually find it quite tiring. You go out for an hour and a half or something on a midweek evening, and you come back and sit, I sit there then for an hour thinking about what’s been discussed and whether my responses or my interventions, my questions were relevant or whether I’d been too challenging, whether I’d been too belligerent or whether I’d been too soft. I question myself on what’s been going on.” [Participant 2]

As in this extract, many participants spoke about how they struggled with rumination, where they went back and forth over the sessions, sometimes struggling to stop. As in Participant 2’s case, volunteers did not tend to ruminate about the individual specifically, or even necessarily about the content of sessions which could be very difficult to hear, but were more likely to think about their own influence and behaviour within the sessions. Often, this was linked to their sense of themselves as protectors of society (as discussed in Theme 2 above). The volunteers position themselves as uniquely placed to prevent future harm to others, but the potential for harm is both real and constant. Thus, as in the case of Participant 2, this can lead to the need to maintain hyper-vigilance to ensure the safety of others, and the need to constantly evaluate their own behaviour to ensure they meet their own high expectations and standards.

While this was often discussed as a coping strategy, it is not clear how well this worked for participants. Indeed, as pointed out by Participant 7:

“Sometimes you can’t [joke] because you think of the victims. You don’t think of him. You think of what’s going to happen to a nine-year-old girl, if she gets abused, you know, the effect that’s going to have on her life.”

Several participants spoke of their own sense of responsibility in stark terms like this – about what happens if they miss something, and this was difficult for people to detach from entirely. Instead, the only coping mechanism that seemed to work effectively across all participants was accessing support from the organisation, from Volunteer Co-Ordinators, and from other volunteers. Several participants spoke about how this support was central to their ability to carry on with their role, because it provided a safe space to debrief with people who shared your experiences (and your burdens). Such support is particularly vital where social support outside of the organisation cannot be accessed, either due to the potential negative reactions of others or because they simply would not or could not understand the unique nature of the role. We pick this up in the next section where we talk about a case of burnout.

A Case of Burnout

In this final section, we will focus on a single interviewee in more depth - Participant 7 – as an instance of burnout. Participant 7 was the only volunteer interviewed who had chosen to leave the organisation and no longer volunteered for them, and therefore his perspective is relatively unique and unheard in the literature on volunteering to date. This is not to say that Participant 7 is representative of all those who stop volunteering with individuals convicted of sexual offences, but his experiences do provide valuable learning about when and how things can go wrong for volunteers.

Importantly, Participant 7 showed quite different motivations for engaging in voluntary work with those convicted of sexual offenses. Participant 7 was the only volunteer who identified an employment interest as being the main motivation for becoming a volunteer, and this could begin to explain why his experience was so difficult: the ‘protector of society’ identity created by other volunteers, as an extension of a pre-existing and deeply held volunteering identity, may have acted as a protective feature against traumatic symptoms and enhanced their resilience, as their initial aims were to help others rather than themselves. For most of the participants, the support provided by their supervisor and fellow volunteers was sufficient to manage difficult situations. However, contrary to this, Participant 7 experienced great difficulty in processing the behaviour of the individual, the pressures of the role, and the potential risks around his involvement with stigmatised individuals. His sense of personal responsibility was high, leading to him putting large amounts of pressure on himself within sessions, and he struggled to switch off from this. His sense of risk, and possible harm, to himself and his family should something go wrong, can be seen in the extract below:

“I mean, this is years ago, where misidentification issues come about, and they petrol bombed sex offenders’ houses. Now that, to me, because I work with sex offenders, and I try support them rehabilitate, that’s going to affect my family.”

Here Participant 7 is referring to the News of the World scandal, where people convicted of sexual offences were ‘outed’ in the newspaper, resulting in several vigilante attacks. However, there were some attacks on the houses of innocent individuals, including a paediatrician whose job title was mistaken for the term paedophile (BBC, 2001). This violent imagery of petrol-bombing alongside the mention of his family, creates a real sense of fear for the potential consequences of working with these individuals, enough to prevent him from revealing his work to those outside of his immediate friends and family. Participant 7 indicated he wanted to discuss his experiences with someone outside of the group but was unable to. The helplessness of feeling unable to share his problems with his preferred agencies, combined with the continuing difficulty of the individual’s descriptions of his offences resulted in Participant 7 deciding not to continue volunteering with the organisation. All of the other volunteers described particularly difficult issues within the groups they participated in, but in comparison to Participant 7 were all able to manage and overcome these issues. Participant 7’s experience may be an isolated and extreme example of a having a difficult voluntary experience, but his perceived burnout should be a cause for concern.

Discussion

In this paper, we have explored the lived experiences of individuals volunteering to work with those convicted of sexual offences, highlighting their complex experiences of courtesy stigma, and how they negotiate a ‘protector of society’ volunteer identity, as well as an enhanced sense of responsibilisation, because of (and to manage) this stigma. Our findings provide a unique insight into an under-researched area, adding voice to those volunteering in complex contexts, where volunteering is not always a clear ‘win-win’ for individuals (e.g., Snyder et al., 1999). Moreover, we have highlighted the pervasive and immeasurable impact of stigmatisation and how far this can extend beyond the initially stigmatised individual. Indeed, we present here the possibility that courtesy stigma may extend to a second level, where one participant spoke about how her husband struggled with her voluntary work because of the potential stigmatisation of him by society; this is not something present in previous research.

Overall, this highlights the relevance of considering stigma, and some of its dynamics, in the context of helping relationships (see also Snyder et al., 1999; White & Gilstrap, 2017). For example, we have demonstrated how the perceived reactions of friends, the community, and the ‘public’ mean that some volunteers working with those convicted of sexual offences choose not to disclose their volunteering to others, or to disclose only to close friends and family members whose reactions could be anticipated. Where disclosure did happen, our participants tended to engage in perception management work, either by focusing on the beneficial aspects of their work, or by reframing disclosure as an educational tool to tackle wider stigma. These echo the coping strategies that have been highlighted in other work on stigma. For example, work on modified labelling theory (MLT) highlights that stigmatised individuals tend to use one or more of three coping strategies: secrecy, withdrawal from interactions with all but close family or friends and educating others about mental illness (Link et al., 1989). While this work is primarily focused on mental health stigma, and not on courtesy stigma, there are similarities in how our participants coped (or did not cope) with the stigma they experienced or perceived.

Importantly, work on MLT points out that such coping mechanisms (particularly withdrawal) are not particularly effective, and can often backfire, leading to increased social isolation and demoralisation, and undermining self-worth (Thoits, 2011). Likewise, previous work on CoSA volunteers has highlighted several concerns about volunteers compartmentalising their work with CoSA as a protective mechanism, pointing to the fact that this may not be a successful long-term strategy for managing the stress of their volunteering role (e.g. see Lowe & Willis, 2019; McCartan, 2016). We would add to this a concern about the fact that that these volunteers do appear to have limited access to wider forms of community and social support related to their volunteering. Community support and identification processes have been found to be essential to the wellbeing of volunteers in other contexts, buffering some of the stresses associated with helping (e.g., see Bowe et al., 2018; 2020; Gray & Stevenson, 2019). Helping is hard, and the resources provided by community-based social support can provide the necessary means to deal with a demanding and challenging role. Therefore, we would argue that more needs to be done to consider the support needs of volunteers and how they manage the stressors of their volunteer role.

We would also argue that more attention needs to be paid the responsibilisation of volunteers within this context, and the impact that this sense of personal responsibility has on volunteer wellbeing. We found that this could lead to inadequate coping strategies, such as rumination, which is concerning as this has been noted alongside high levels of stress as being an issue with professionals (Severson & Pettus-Davis, 2013). Hӧing et al.’s (2014) finding that volunteers tended to ruminate about the risk of the individual between meetings was not replicated here, but instead we found that the focus of rumination was the personal actions of the volunteer. Our analysis highlights that this was due to the intense personal responsibility and role identity that some of the volunteers placed on themselves, as well as a fear of the extreme risks to the community. This could have a significant influence on levels of volunteer stress and burnout but is ultimately something that should not be the focus of the volunteer role, with the organisation and multiple outside agencies underpinning the volunteer work and being accountable for the risk of the individual convicted of sexual offences.

Our work speaks to some things that work (and do not work) to promote volunteer wellbeing within this context. Overall, we found that most volunteers themselves are not passive in the face of the demands of their role. Instead, many volunteers are actively engaging in identity management that has the power to be protective for them, by reconstructing for themselves a volunteer identity, focused on providing help in contexts where others will not. While this is a burgeoning field of work, there is some evidence that this kind of identity management can work to strengthen group identification and promote social support from others within the group in ways that is resilient for health and wellbeing (Jetten et al., 2018). Thus, while stigmatised group memberships can be the basis for threats to health, they can also provide people with resources that allow them to counteract those threats. This was a clear finding in our interviews, where social support from others working in the same context was clearly perceived by volunteers as supportive to their wellbeing, through discussions of shared experience, perceived similarity, and received social support (Jetten et al., 2012). Our work adds to this limited body of work by demonstrating how a model of shared support within an organisation, based on a shared identity of working with a stigmatised group, does work to help those helping others.

Finally, we can also see – from the limited case of Participant 7 – that where this kind of identity management does not work to counteract stigma, it can be damaging to wellbeing and ultimately lead to volunteer burnout. Participant 7 was the least likely to share his volunteer experiences with others because of an intense fear of negative stigma and retribution from the public due to his association with those convicted of sexual offences, though he himself wanted to seek out community-based social support. He also did not show the kinds of identity management work that others did, and therefore did not seem to be able to see himself as a ‘protector of society’ in a beneficial way. Instead, his understanding of himself as the last line of defence created a clear sense of distress, that he might miss something and put others at risk. This was likely intensified by the negative influence of being exposed to offence-related descriptions and fantasies by the core member (Baum & Moyal, 2018). While this is a single case, and it is not possible to generalise from his experience, this also provides a unique perspective on volunteer burnout in this context. More research is needed with those who choose to leave these volunteering roles, to identify effective strategies for promoting wellbeing, especially for volunteers who possess relatively few resources for self-management.

Our findings have several practical implications for organisations that provide programmes for those convicted of sexual offences, who rely on volunteers. The courtesy stigma experienced by these volunteers is disheartening, as they provide an important service that is well evidenced as having positive outcomes on preventing reoffending and promoting independence in individuals convicted of sexual offences (Bates et al., 2013; Hӧing, Bogaerts et al., 2015; Wilson, Picheca, & Prinzo, 2007). While this was not the focus of our study, this courtesy stigma is likely to play a large part in the inability to recruit volunteers, which remains a large challenge within this context (see Dwyer et al., 2013). Our findings also indicate that courtesy stigma may play a large part in the retention of volunteers over time, which is essential to the delivery, efficacy, and continuation of programmes such as CoSA. The need for public education in this area is apparent and could go some way into recruitment and retention of volunteers. Furthermore, it is important that adequate interventions are put in place to support volunteers in their experience of this stigma, and to provide both internal peer-based social support, and access to outside help where possible. There also needs to be further consideration of the fact that some people may be more vulnerable to the stresses of volunteering in stigmatising contexts, and further understanding of these vulnerabilities – and consideration of what is needed to boost people’s resiliency – may go some way to helping volunteers persist in the face of stressful and stigmatising roles.

Limitations

This study is not without its limitations. Due to our IPA methodology, our participants were deliberately homogenous: all volunteers for one organisation within a specific geographical area that works with people convicted of sexual offences. It would be helpful to explore volunteering with stigmatised groups in other areas/countries to get a sense of whether these accounts are typical and/or transferable. However, we did manage to capture a range of experiences and perspectives, including from one volunteer who had stopped volunteering entirely, which we feel does capture well the lived reality of volunteering within this context.

Conclusion

This research has explored the lived experiences of volunteering with people convicted of sexual offences in the community. Individuals convicted of these crimes continue to be a highly stigmatised group in society. Given that two-thirds of staff in criminal justice charities in the UK who work with these individuals are volunteers (Clinks, 2017), this study provides a long overdue contribution to the body of research on the experiences and impact that working with this stigmatised group can have on volunteers. These findings provide a deeper understanding of how volunteers relate to their role, their motivations for volunteering with stigmatised groups, how they manage difficult situations, and how all of this is underlined by an overarching courtesy stigma from the public they serve to protect.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Debra Gray

Jessica Parkes

Lynn McKeague

Appendix

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