Sexual boundary violations in correctional services

It is vitally important that correctional service employees maintain professional boundaries in their work. As well as the potential for individual-level harms, boundary violating-behaviours in correctional services can compromise the safety of an institution, expose the wider public to increased risk, and undermine the core purpose of the organisation. Although sexual boundary violations are known to occur in correctional services, relatively little has been written about this type of misconduct. In this paper, the authors explore data and existing research in this area, in an effort to shed light on the prevalence and nature of sexual boundary violations in UK correctional services. It is argued that greater transparency, openness and knowledge about the issue is necessary to inform future organisational safeguards.