Sex Offender Recidivism

“Sex offenders are a highly heterogeneous mixture of individuals who have committed violent sexual assaults on strangers, offenders who have had inappropriate sexual contact with family members, individuals who have molested children, and those who have engaged in a wide range of other inappropriate and criminal sexual behaviors,” according to the Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM). These individuals are highly dangerous to those who have previously been sexually offended and members of the community upon return after prison. “Recidivism may occur when there is a new arrest, new conviction, or new commitment to custody” (CSOM). There are high hopes that these arrests and convictions do not happen, but there are high chances that a sex offender will offend again.

A problem regarding sexual offenders and recidivism, are that a lot of victims may not report that they have been sexually abused or raped. “The National Crime Victimization Surveys (Bureau of Justice Statistics) conducted in 1994, 1995, and 1998 indicate that only 32 percent (one out of three) of sexual assaults against persons 12 or older are reported to law enforcement” (CSOM). In other words, not even half of all sexual assaults are reported. The reason behind this is fear. Victims are afraid that they may be in danger if the offender finds out they told someone or they want to get rid of the memory. “They may fear that reporting will lead to the following: further victimization by the offender; other forms of retribution by the offender or by the offender’s friends or family; arrest, prosecution, and incarceration of an offender who may be a family member or friend and on whom the victim or others may depend; others finding out about the sexual assault; not being believed; and being traumatized by the criminal justice response” (CSOM).

To possibly prevent sex offenders who have been released back into the community from recidivism, gaining knowledge on each offender may help. Experts need to pay attention to specific facts about each individual offender. “There are historical characteristics, such as age, prior offense history, and age at first sex offense arrest or conviction” (CSOM). Those are only some of the factors that can help. Others would be changes in their life, their use of drugs and alcohol, etc. Surveys have come a long way in gaining knowledge on groups of offenders and their recidivism rates, but it does not account for everyone. Researchers may have separate results based on the characteristics and other factors that they test. There may be no real answer as to the amount of sex offenders that fail and commit again.

Reliable results were found in a 1997, study by Prentky, Lee, Knight, and Cerce on rapists and child molesters, see graph. “In this study, recidivism was operationalized as a failure rate and calculated as the proportion of individuals who were rearrested using survival analysis (which takes into account the amount of time each offender has been at risk in the community). Results show that over longer periods of time, child molesters have a higher failure rate—thus, a higher rate of rearrest—than rapists (52 percent versus 39 percent over 25 years)” (CSOM).

These results are very accurate but only account for sex offenders that had committed child molestation or rape. The graph clearly indicates that overall child molesters had more of a recidivism rate, but both sets of offenders matched up closely.

Recidivism is always going to be an issue and will never go away. The more research and surveys conducted, the more it can help with the prevention of sex offenders committing sex crimes again. The sad part is that victims are usually afraid to report that they have been assaulted and there is no way to know they were. It will be an accomplishment to keep as many sex offenders and sexual predators with potential chances of committing again, off the street even though there is just no way to prevent them all.

Works Cited:

Center for Sex Offender Management. “Recidivism of Sex Offenders.” CSOM. Department of Justice. May 2001. Web. 6 Aug 2010. http://www.csom.org/pubs/recidsexof.html