Recidivism

Recidivism

This refers to how likely -- once someone has been convicted of a crime -- they are likely to repeat the same (or similar) crime. So, for our purposes, we are mainly talking about someone who has been found guilty of a child-sex-related crime subsequently being convicted of a second such offense.

The following actually happened: Watching the evening news one night, we were told that the recidivism rate for sex offenders was approximately 50%. The very next night, we were told it was nearly 100%. (We half-expected that, the following night the figure of 150% would be pronounced.)

It appears to be widely believed that sex offenders, (perhaps) especially those convicted of crimes involving children, are very likely to recidivate. But this belief is not supported by actual evidence , as we shall soon see.

U17 [6] "[W]hat happens when there is scientific evidence contrary to strongly held beliefs? What should happen is described by Skinner (Mahoney, 1976): 'Science is a willingness to accept facts even when they are opposed to our wishes.' Hardly anyone would say that we should deliberately ignore facts. Scientists agree that a good theory is one that can be tested and proven false. When a theory or concept is falsified, it is reasonable to expect that some attitudes and beliefs will change in accordance with the facts."

B14 [898] "[I]f actual recidivism rates motivated registration laws, drug dealers and burglars should be the prime target of registration laws, rather than sex offenders."

[937] "If recidivism were truly the reason behind community notification laws, legislatures would impose them on burglars, robbers, and drug offenders, each of whom have higher overall recidivism rates than sex offenders. If the real reason were the severity of sex crimes, and the vulnerability of society to such crimes, murderers and other vioebt crimials would also be subject to community notification. The reasons given for imposing commuity notification on sex offenders simply do not justify imposing community notification solely on sex offenders."

L8 "[N]ot only do sex offenders have the very lowest recidivism rate among all other types of crimes, but...the rate of re-offense for sexual crimes has plummeted recently to roughly one-fifth what it was when that observation was made some twenty five years ago."

W2 [ix] "Convicted sex offenders as a class are less likely overall to be convicted of new offenses than are most classes of offenders. Reconviction rates of sexual offenders for subsequent sex offenses [x] are typically in the single-digits or low teens (compared with 50-60 percent for any offender for any offense)."

W28 [40] "Recidivism rates vary sigificantly across studies mainly due to methodological differences. These differences include types of data sources, how recidivism is defined, and sample characteristics. Despite these issues, recidivism rates of sex offenders are relatively low."

[41] "[S]exual assault recidivism rates are lower than recidivism rates for other violent and most nonviolent crime...[T]he data do not support the rhetorical convention (often repeated in the policy debate) that sex offenders 'always reoffend.'"

S37 [228] "Despite methodological difficulties, differences in sample size, and variability of follow-up lengths, most studies find some level of sexual reoffending among sex offenders, but generally, recidivism rates tend to be much lower for sex offenders than sex offender laws imply. Clearly, not all sex offenders inevitably reoffend."

S5 [5] "Federal and state crime statistics and data on recidivism (re-arrest) rates for tens of thousands of sex offenders show that 87 to 97% of all convicted sex offenders who have been released do not commit any more sex crimes."

K2 "Frank E. Zimring, professor of law and director of the Earl Warren Legal Institute at UC Berkeley indicates that the recidivism rate for sexual crimes against children is 26%, a figure which includes many small 'technical violations such as failure to register.' This rate is very low compared to other crimes. It is 'less than half the rate reported for burglars and robbers released in 1991 and lower than for any other of the major crime categories.'"

W8 [29] "The courts assume, in line with Victorian thinking, that...deviant sex offenders are extraordinarily recidivistic...'In fact, in FBI ratings of recidivism, sex offenses rank quite low, well below the rate of recidivism for theft and robbery.'" *

H10 [106] "[T]he available evidence does not support the popular belief that sexual offenders inevitably reoffend. The overall rate of sex offenders is, on average, less than the rate for nonsexual criminals (Neck & Shipley, 1989)."

K7 "[M]ore than one third of all parolees return to prison, a much larger number than that of sex offenders. Also, '[s]tudies of recidivism generally show that sex offenders as a whole are less likely to reoffend than other criminals.'" **

M14 "Well-documented research, including findings of the Bureau of Justice Statistics, has shown that contrary to the premise of SORA [New York State's Sex Offender Registration Act], sex offenders as a whole reoffend at a lower rate than other offenders, while most sex offenses are committed by first-time offenders. Most sex offenders do not reoffend."

C11 [708] "The fear that released sex offenders will almost certainly reoffend in their communities comes with much 'political and emotional appeal, but little empirical substantiation.'"

[711] "[S]ex offenders 'are among the least likely criminals to be arrested for new crimes' despite public perception that sex offenders have the highest recidivism rate."

J11 [162] "Sexual predator laws are, at their base, aimed at preventing recidivist sexual violence. A basic tenet underlying the enactment of sex offender laws, including civil commitment laws, registration, and notification laws, is the belief that sex offender recidivism is high. This focus on recidivism is problematic for several reasons.

"First, studies with the strongest methodology show that recidivism rates for sex offenders are as low, and often lower, than re-offense rates for criminals convicted of non-sexual crimes."

S18 [97] "Beliefs in the compulsivity of sex offenders have supported the passage of sex offender registration and community notification laws. Notions of homogeneity among sex offenders have allowed these laws to be applied to all sex offenders irrespective of their sex crime type. Research on the offending patterns of incarcerated sex offenders and probationers, however, typically finds that recidivism rates for sex offenders are relatively low and vary across different sex offender types."

M10 [1609] "Of those convicted of sex offenses against children, even fewer pose threats to the public at large because victims are often a member of the offender's own family."

B14 [893] "In 1950, the New Jersey Commission on the Habitual Sex Offender reported that sex offenders had a recidivism rate of only seven percent, based on subsequent rearrests for sexual offenses. This rate was [894] lower than all other serious offenses, except murder. Several researchers in subsequent years agreed with this conclusion, finding that serious sex offenders, such as rapists and child molesters, were not serious recidivists. In 1965, one of the most comprehensive studies of recidivism among sex offenders concluded that only 10% of sex offenders were convicted for another sexual crime within twelve to twenty-four years.

"In 1985, another group of researchers studied the correlation between recidivism rates and the type of sexual crime committed. This study [895] found that altough the average rearrest for a sexual crime among the subjects within the ten year period was 11.3%, this rate varied significantly with the type of offender: pedophiles at 6.2%, sexual assaulters at 10.4%, and exhibitionists at 20.5%."

S5 [5] "A 1994 U.S. Department of Justice study of recidivism of sex offenders versus other ex-convicts showed that 87% of sex crimes during the study period were committed by someone other than a convicted sex offender."

[14] "[E]x-cons who are not sex offenders are far more likely to commit a sexual offense than are convicted sex offenders."

[15] "The Department of Justice's own report states that the recidivism rate of released sex offenders is only either 3.5 or 5 percent. In their report entitled 'Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994,' 5.3% (517 of 9,691) of released sex offenders were 'rearrested for a sex crime,' and '3.5% (339 of 9,691) were reconvicted of a sex crime within the 3-year follow-up period.' (The conviction rate is less than the arrest rate because, of course, not all arrests lead to convictions.)

"In this study, there were 27 times more non-sex offender ex-convicts than there were released sex offenders. The ex-convicts who were not sex offenders actually committed six times more new sex crimes than did the released sex offenders. This study showed that 87% of new sex crimes were committed by ex-convicts, not be registered sex offenders (US DOJ 2003)."

K3 [4] "In general, and contrary to public opinion, people convicted of sex offenses reoffend at lower rates than people convicted of other offenses. The U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (Langan, Schmitt & Durose, 2003) report on recidivism of people convicted of sex offenses shows that only 5.3% of sex offenders were rearrested for any type of new sex crime within three years after their release from prison. Sex [5] offenders had lower overall rearrest rates than people convicted of non-sexual crimes: 43% of people convicted of sex offenses were rearrested post release [for any crime, the vast majority of which were non-sexual] compared to a 68% rearrest rate for people convicted of crimes other than sex offenses."

M10 [1609] "[The reality is that] very few sex offenders -- including child molesters -- are recidivists. [from FN20:] An FBI study found that only 3.5% of nearly 10,000 sex offenders released in 1994 were reconvicted for a new offense within three years of release from prison: the numbers for rapists, sexual assaulters, and child molesters were 3.2%, 3.7%, and 3.5%, respectively." ***

W28 [39] "A 2002 BJS [Bureau of Justice Statistics] study of 27,111 former inmates from 15 states found that 67.5% were rearrested within a 3-year period. The majority of these rearrests were for felonies or serious misdemeanors. Of this group, 46.9% were convicted of a new crime. Rapists, who represented 1.2% (N=3,138) of the total of released inmates, were among those with the lowest rate (46%) of rearrest, as were other sexual assault (41.4%) prisoners. The higher end for rearrest characterstics were robbers (70.2%), burglars (74%), larcenists (74.6%), motor vehicle thieves (78%), those convicted of selling stolen property (77.4%), and possessing, using, or selling illegal weapons (70.2%). Within 3 years, 2.5% (N=78) of released rapists were rearrested for another rape... (Langan & Levin, 2002)."

W34 [521] "[A] study conducted in 2001 using data from Delaware produced...results [very similar to those of the above BJS study]. [522] "The authors of the Delaware study modeled their investigation after the one conducted by BJS, with some modifications due to Delaware's Unified Corrections System. Delaware's study showed that released sex offenders had a recidivism rate for a new sex crime of 3.8%, a rate lower than the national average that BJS had found...The Delaware study supports the BJS's statistical conclusions that sex offenders are very unlikely to recidivate with a new sex crime and that sex-offender recidivism is not rising."

W2 [416] "In 2006, Drake and Barnoski assessed various trends about sex offenders in Washington State...[One of the key findings was that:] [417] When compared to other felony ffenders, sex offenders have the lowest recidivism rates for felony offenses and violent felony offenses -- 13% and 6.7%, respectively."

C11 [710] "The findings of a Washington state study...indicated a 2.7% sex offender recidivism rate. **** Thus, by enforcing SVP ['sexually violent predator'] statutes to civilly commit sex offenders following their release, the state might expend millions of dollars each year to curb less than 3% of sex offenders."

P16 [637] "The participants in this study were 265 male sexual offenders who had been committed to the Massachusetts Treatment Center for Sexually Dangerous Persons (MTC) in Bridgewater, Massachusetts."

[Would these be 'the worst of the worst' in the entire state?]

[638] "The samples are predominantly Caucasian, of average intelligence, with an 8th-grade education, and a semiskilled level of employment. The average number of known sexual offenses prior to Treatment Center commitment was 2.5 for the rapists and 3.6 for the child molesters."

[642] "Fr rapists, the % of new sexual offenses at the end of the study period (25 years) was 26% [in terms of crimes charged ]..."

[643] "For child molesters, the % of new sexual offenses at the end of the study period was 32% [again, in terms of crimes charged ]..."

[644] "[For rapists:] The % for charge was 26%, followed by 15% for conviction..."

"[For chid molesters:] The % of new sexual offenses...was 32%...for charges, 25%...for conviction..."

W4 [12] "Pithers and Cumming...conpared this [Vermont study finding a 3% recidivism rate for pedophiles and a 15% rate for rapists on a six-year follow-up] to the recidivism on a five-year follow-up on sex offenders who were treated with a standard peer-group therapy milieu at Atascadero Hospital [in California, part of the prison system] (this was an old treatment program, before relapse prevention was instituted). There was no significant dfference in recidivism between the Atascadero rapists and the Vermont rapists (26% versus 15%), but there was a highly significant difference for the pedophiles. While only 3% of the Vermont pedophiles relapsed, 18% of the Atascadero pedophiles reoffended."

[Six times higher; but note that even this 18% figure is far lower than the general criminal recidivism rate of approximately 60%.]

H12 [123] [This paper reports recidivism data from three samples, only one of which is constituted exclusively of 'child molesters.' (The other two are not broken down by rape of adults vs. child sexual abuse etc.) Though the Canadian 'CM' sample does report a 35.1% recidivism rate, there are several caveats: 1) it is only an estimate ; 2) this figure appears to be for all sexual recidivism, whether against minors or adults; 3) this sample had an unusually long follow-up period of 23 years; and 4) 'recidivism ' was defined as any new 'charges' or [hosptial] 'readmissions.' As the authors themselves write:

[125] "[T]he estimates [126] for the longest follow-up periods can be unstable if there are few offenders remaining in the later years."

M13 [683] "[R]ecidivism rates for extra-familial [i.e., non-incestuous] child molesters...were 14%, 8%, and 28% for sexual, violent, and general recidivism, respectively, after a five-year follow-up. The percentage of men who committed a sexual, violent, or any criminal offense, cumulatively, by the 12th year was 15.1%, 20.3%, and 41.6%, respectively.

"Conventionally, recidivism studies include a follow-up period of between five and ten years, witn reported rates of sexual reoffending for extra-familial child molesters of approxiately 12%..."

"In a recent investigation, any sexual, violent, or criminal reoffence was examined in a group of extra-famiial child [684] molesters (Wexler, Firestone, Nunes, & Bradford, 2006)...The percentages of any recidivism during a 20-year follow-up were 22.8%, 35.0%, and 46% for sexual, violent, and any new offence, respectively."

[6590] [In the present study:] "The overall proportion of men recidivating was 22.8%...for sexual recidivism, 33.9%...for violent recidivism (including sexual), and 45.1%...for general recidivism. The overall average time to first reoffence was 10.56 years...for sexual recidivists..."

W2 [274] "Harris and [275] Hanson (2004) concluded, 'Most sexual offenders do not reoffend sexually over time. . .This finding is contrary to some strongly held beliefs. After 15 years, 73% of sexual offenders had not been charged with, or convicted of, another sexual offence."

H3 [351] "The 61 studies [in this meta-analysis] provided information on 28,972 sexual offenders...On average, the sex offense recidivism rate was 13.4%...The average follow-up period was 4-5 years."

[356] "The present findings contradict the popular view that sexual offenders inevitably reoffend...[E]ven in studies with thorough searches and long follow-up periods (15-20 years), the recidivism rates almost never exceeded 40%."

H8 [1156] "On average, the observed sexual recidivism rate was 13.7%...The average follow-up time [1157] was 5-6 years...The coding did not permit comparisons between rapists and child molesters."

H7 [6] "The observed sexual recidivism rate was 11.5% (N=28,757)...The average follow-up time was 70 months [i.e., 5.8 years]...Although some of the 'recidivists' would have been falsely accused, the proportion of falsely accused indviduals would be smaller than the proportion of undetected offenders."

J11 [from FN116:] "A meta-analysis of seventy-nine studies of treated and untreated sex offenders found that only 14.4% of treated child molesters (25.8% of untreated child molesters) later recidivated." *****

W2 [273] "Sex offender recidivism statistics are frequently declared without citing a source, and even when properly attributed, the statistics given are sometimes misrepresented. For example, some New York politicians quote a 49% recidivism rate, drawn from a New York Department of Corrections report that studied 556 sex offenders released from prison (Canestrini, 1996). Within 9 years of their release, 49% were returned [274] to prison (most commonly for probation violations and drug charges), but only 6% were convicted of a new sex crime."

[So, the above New York State politicians were citing a recidivism rate of more than eight times the actual one.]

"The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children [NCMEC] backs its support of 'tougher sex offender legislation' (which ultimately became the 2006 Adam Walsh Act), by stating on its website that 'according to statistics from the U.S. Department of Justice. . .released sex offenders were four times more likely to be rearrested for a sex crime than non-sex offenders.' This statement, though it is an accurate quote from the Department of Justice (DOJ) report, can easily be misinterpreted when taken out of context. Within three years of release from prison in 1994, 5.3% of released sex offenders were rearrested for a new sex crime (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2003). It is true that sex offenders, as is the case with most criminal offenders, were four times more likely to be rearrested again for their crimes of choice. However, it is noteworthy that the DOJ report found that new sex crimes were more than six times more likely to be committed by other types of criminals (3,328) than by previously identified sex offenders (517)."

[Note that the NCMEC does not state the actual, very low recidivism figure itself: 5.3%. That means that 94.7% of released sex offenders were not charged with another sex offense within three years of release.]

Now to some (more) fact-free political grandstanding:

M10 [from FN18:] "(2005) (statement of [U.S.] Rep. Mark Foley ® ('There is a ninety percent likelihood of recidivism for sexual crimes against children.')...(1996) (statement of Rep. Charles Schumer) ('[W]hen these folks come out of prison, the odds are extremely high that they will commit the same or a similar crime again.')...(1994) (statement of Rep. Jennifer Dunn) ('The rate of recidivism for these crimes is astronomical because these people are compulsive.')...(1993) (statement of Sen. Joseph Biden) ('[T]hese offenders are a group especially prone to recidivism.'): see also N.C. Gen. Stat. §14-208.5 (2012) ('The General Assembly recognizes that sex offenders often pose a high risk of engaging in sex offenses even after being released from incarceration or commitment. . .'); Proposition 83, Cal. Secretary St. §2(b) (2006)...(stating on the ballot for a sex offender residency restriction that '[s]ex offenders have a dramatically higher recidivism rate for their crimes than any other type of violent felon...')."

[All of the statements in the above paragraph are flat wrong . As former Congressman Barney Frank was fond of saying: "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion -- but not their own facts."]

[ ® Foley was subsequently forced to resign when it was revealed that he had sent sexually-laden e-mails to a 16-year-old. (See Hypocrisy Files .)]

C11 [709] "A 2005 Department of Justice (DOJ) report stated that sex offenders are more than four times as likely as non-sex offenders to be arrested for another sex crime after release. However, the report fails to explain how this statistic should be interpreted. First, it must be noted that the sex crime rate for both groups -- 5.3% of sex offenders commit another sex crime and 1.3% of non-sex offenders commit a sex crime after release -- is quite low. A recidivism rate of 5.3% does not warrant the same drastic push for action. Second, sex offenders are more likely to commit non-sex crimes than sex crimes after release. The report found a 43% recidivism rate for sex offenders committing any crime after release. The report found a 43% recidivism rate for sex offenders committing any crime after release. This is significantly less than the recidivism rate for non-sex offenders of 68%."

J11 [162] "Legislative pronouncements and findings supporting sex offender laws often spout statistics borne of fuzzy math...Politicians also ignore the scientific research concerning sex offender recidivism rates. For example, the Florida Sexual Predator Act includes legislative findings stating that 'sexual offenders who prey on children are sexual predators who represent an extreme threat to public safety. . .[and] are extremely likely to use physical violence and to repeat their offenses.' Similarly, the Oklahoma [163] civil commitment statute states that '[t]he Legislature finds that sex offenders who prey on others as a result of mental illness pose a high risk of re-offending after release from custody.'"

[If the legislature 'finds' that the Earth is flat, that does not make it so.]

"These assertions of high recidivism are simply incorrect. [In a] comprehensive review of 24,000 sex offenders, researchers found that only 13.4% of convicted sex offenders committed another sexual offense within five years of their release."

S37 [229] "Concerning sex offenders' propensity to murder their victims, scholars suggest that sex offenders rarely kill (Francis & Soothill, 2000; Sample, 2006)."

[93] "[R]ecent criminological literature consistently shows that when sex offenders do reoffend, they are more likely to commit a nonsexual offense than a sexual one." @

[228] "Scholars have noted variability in the rates of general reoffendig for sex offenders with adult, as opposed to child, victims. Most have found that rapists or offenders with adult victims recidivate at a higher rate than child molesters." @@

[229] "Marques et al. (1994) also examined sexual recidivism among sex offenders with child and adult victims and found that a greater proportion of rapists were rearrested for another sex crime (9.1%) than child molesters (4%)."

W4 [12] "Only the Vermont [relapse prevention] program (Pithers & Cumming, 1989) reports follow-up data as the other programs are too new. On a six-year follow-up on recidivism for 167 offenders who attended the program in 1982, there was a 4% recidivism rate for the group as a whole. This differed for rapists and pedophiles, with a rate of 3% for pedophiles (4 out of 147) and 15% for rapists (3 out of 20)."

[So, the recidivism rate was five times higher for rapists (of adults) than for 'pedophiles.']

H3 [351] "The 61 studies [in this meta-analysis] provided information on 28,972 sexual offenders...On average, the sex offense recidivism rate was...18.9% for...rapists and 12.7% for...child molesters...The average follow-up period was 4-5 years."

S18 [86] "Researchers have noted the variablity in the rates of reoffending for sex offenders with adult, as opposed to child, victims. Most find that rapists, or offenders with adult victims, recidivate at a higher rate than do child molesters...[87] For example, Marques et al. (1994) studied recidivism among treated and untreated child molesters whose victims were 15 years or ounger and rapists whose victims were 16 years or older, using rearrest as their measure for a new offense. They found that a greater proportion of rapists were rearrested for other violent (22.7%) and sexual (9.1%) offenses during a 5-year period than were child molesters (7.9% for violent, 4% for sexual offenses)."

[93] "Slightly more than half of the persons whose first charge in 1990 was for child molestation were rearrested for another [i.e., any type of] felony offense within 5 years (51.9%). Those in the rape (49.1%) and other (48.6%) categories were rearrested for another offense within 5 years in greater percentages than were arrested in the hebephilia [victims 13 through 18] (37.4%) and child pornography (34.6%) categories. Persons in the pedophilia [victims ages 12 and younger] category were rearrested for another offense within 5 years less frequently than were those in any other group (31.4%)."

[But again, the foregoing are re-arrest figures, for any felony -- sexual or otherwise.]

[95] "Those who sexually penetrated children and teens had lower recidivism rates than did those who victmized adults. There does then appear to be variability in the reoffending rates of sex offenders in that pedophiles and hebephiles have less of a propensity to recidivate than do persons in most other sexual crime categories. This finding, however, does not address the degree to which various other types of sex offenders are rearrested for the same sex crime..."

"Those in the rape category had the highest rates of rearrest for the same offense (5.8%) within 5 years. Arrestees in the other (5.4%) and child pornograohy (3.8%) categories were rearrested for their crimes in greater proportions than were persons in the pedophilia, hebephilia, and child pornography categories. This evidence suggests that rapists recommit rape with greater frequency than pedophiles recommit pedophilia or hebephiles recommit hebephilia, again suggesting that sex offenders are not the homogeneous group that sex offender laws lead us to believe. The proportions of persons rearrested for the same offense for all offense types, however, were quite small. None reached as high as 6%. The fact is that the overwhelming majority of all arrestess in the listed sex offender types did not recommit the sex crime for which they were first arrested in 1990."

[95] "No category of sex offenders had greater than a 10% rearrest rate for a sex crime. Child pornographers (10%) and those in the other category (juvenile pimping and soliciting, Internet violations, and permitting child sexual abuse) were rearrested for any sex offense within 5 years more frequently than were rapists, hebephiles, and pedophiles. The dfferences in rearrest rates among all of the categories in the analysis, however, are not statistically significant."

Now, some statistics on recidivism and ('perpetrator') age :

L8 "Researchers have known [for some 25 years] that, from age 30 on, the older a sex offender gets, the less likely he is to reoffend -- ever. By one's 50s, such recidivism is very uncommon; in the 60s, it is rare; and at age 70 and beyond, nonexistent ." [Emphasis original.]

P15 [376] "There are four scientific studies that have specifically examined changes in recidivism rates in sex offenders over a large range of age-at-release, and these studies confirm substantial reductions in recidivism over the lifespan." @@@

"The samples of sx offenders that have been used in the development and validation of the actarial risk assessment instruments have included a preponderance of younger offenders. The average years of age at release in these samples are in the mid-30s. Therefore, it could reasonably be argued that the use of the actuarial instruments is inappropriate in estimating risk in the aging sexual offender. Professional standards guiding the use of psychological tests warn against the use of tests if such use may be discriminatory on the basis of age, race culture, and so forth. Clearly, if recidivism risk decreases with age and if the actuarial instruments estimating risk were developed with younger sex offenders, then the use of these instruments with older offenders could be considered to be discriminatory. On this basis, it could be argued that actuarial instruments should not be used with older offenders and to do so might be considered to be a breach of the standards of professional practice.

"Hanson (2005) studies the validity of the Static-99 (Hanson & Thornton, 1999) with older sexual offenders, using data from the eight samples (N=3,435) drawn from Canada, the United States, and the Uited Kingdom, and followed them after release from prison for an average of 7 years...Average recidivism rates steadily [377] declined from 14.8% in offenders under age 40, to 8.8% for offenders in their 40s, 7.5% for offenders in their 50s, and 2% for offenders age 60 or older. Among offenders age 60 or older, the sexual recidivism rates were low even for those who scored in the moderate-high range (4.8%) and the high range (9.1%) on the Static-99." [Emphases original.]

Now to other factors, which may or may not be associated with recidivism:

H9 [579] "Nor is the diagnosis of pedophilia correlated with sexual [580] recidivism. Actually, a study using a regression analysis method indicates that a DSM diagnosis of pedophilia is not even a significant predictor for sexual recidivism. These results undermine the prevailing risk-based model presumotion that a diagnosis of pedophilia is an appropriate proxy for risk assessment supporting legal definitions."

[In other words, a diagnosis of pedophilia is absolutely meaningless as far as recidivism is concerned.]

H3 [353] "Contrary to popular belief, being sexually abused as a child was not associated with risk [of sexual recidivism]."

[356] "A negative clinical presentation (e.g., low remorse, denial, low victim empathy) was unrelated to sexual recidivism..."

[351] "Failure to complete treatment was a moderate predictor of sexual offense recidivism."

Now, to public perceptions , versus reality :

B14 [893] "[D]espite public perception that recidivism is a more serious problem among sex offenders than other criminals, research on sex offenders in the past few decades reveals that recidivism for sex offenses is relatively low. That the public perception of recidivism rates is false or misleading is reason to question whether registration (and community notification) laws should exist."

[897] "Despite studies indicating low recidivism rates, the public continues to perceive, as it has for decades, that the threat from sex offenders is greater [898] than it actually is. In 1950, the New Jersey Commission on the Habitual Sex Offender noted this misperception, indicating that people perceived that violent offenders were prevalent in society, were serious recidivists, and tended to graduate from minor to serious sexual offenses. A 1986 Canadian study of public beliefs about crime reached a similar conclusion. Although the subjects of the Canadian study overestimated recidivism rates for all three categories of crime offered (crimes against property, offenses against the person, and sex offenses), their misperception was the greatest in the category of sex offenses. While the official rate of sex offender recidivism was 13.5%, the public estimate was 57.6%. In contrast, the official rate of recidivism for property offenses was 27.3%, and the public estimate was 49.0%. Thus, while sex offenders had the lowest rate of recidivism, the public believed that they had the highest rate."

[Therefore, the 'public estimate' of sex offender recidivism was more than four times its actual rate .]

K7 "[T]he generally fearful response to sex offenders does not accord with the available data; the [American?] public thinks recidivism rates are 80 percent whereas studies show a rate of 2-13 percent."

D10 [43] "[T]he public widely believes that sex offense recidivism occurs at the 80% rate. One interesting point on this score is that rarely, in the press, is the disagreement about the recidivism rate discussed."

[44] "SVP statutes are generally written as if they are designed to provide a solution to an overwhelmingly significant problem: high offending recidivism rates."

"[T]he threat of sex offending recidivism is smaller than many people believe."

J11 [162] "Reporters and politicians paint a frightening picture for the general public, perpetuating the idea that sex offenders are monsters who cannot help but reoffend."

[163] "The results of these recidivism studies show a clear disconnect between sex offender laws and reality."

S18 [101] "We suggest that before legislation is proposed and enacted to address criminal behavior, it would be wise to identify popular beliefs about the behavior, assess these conceptions against current empirical evidence, and then decide the most prudent course of action based on what we know about the prevalence, frequency, and etiology of the behavior rather than basing our policies on what we simply believe to be true."

E12 [495] "In McKune v. Lile, 536 U.S. 24...(2002)...[U.S. Supreme Court] Justice [Anthony] Kennedy...wrote that the recidivism rate of 'untreated [sex] offenders has been estimated to be as high as 80%...[This is a] frightning and high risk of [496] recidivism.'"

[497] "A Lexis search of legal materials found that phrase in 91 judicial opinions...Justice Kennedy likely found that reference in [an] amicus ['friend of the court'] [498] brief...[There is] but one source for the claim, an article published in 1986 in Psychology Today...That article has this sentence: 'Most untreated sex offenders released from prison go on to commit more offenses -- indeed, as many as 80% do.' But the sentence is a bare assertion: the artile contains no supporting reference for it. Nor does its author appear to have the scientific credentials that would qualify him...as an expert on recidivism. He is a counselor, not a scholar of sex crimes or re-offense rates, and the cited article is not about recidivism statistics. It's about a counseling program for sex offenders he then ran in an Oregon prison. His unsupported assertion about the recidivism for untreated sex offenders was offered to contrast with his equally unsupported assertion about the lower recidivism rate for those who complete the program."

[508] "Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has fed the fear [of sex offenders]. It's become the 'go to' source that courts and politicians rely upon for 'facts' about sex offender recidivism rates that aren't true...The Court's casual approach to the facts of sex offender re-offense rates is far more frightening than the rates themselves..."

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* Imwinkelreid, Uncharged Misconduct Evidence, §4.14, §4.16 (1984).

** [FN20:] The Toxic Offender, N.Y. Times, March 4, 2007, at 14 LI.

*** Patrick A. Langan et al., Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994, Bureau Just. Stat. 24 (2003).

**** [FN135:] Allison Morgan, Note, Civil Confinement of Sex Offenders: New York's Attempt to Push the Envelope in the Name of Public Safety, 86 B.U.L.Rev. 1001, 1032 (2006).

***** Lisa C. Trivits & N. Dickon Reppucci, Application of Megan's Laws to Juveniles, 57 Am. Psychol. 690, 699 (2002).

@ (See Lussier, LeBlanc, & Proulx, 2005; Miethe, Olson, & Mitchell, 2006; Simon, 2000; Smallbone & Wortley, 2004; Soothill, Francis, Sanderson, & Ackerley, 2000; and Zimring, Piquero, & Jennings, 2007.)

@@ (Marques, Day, Nelson, & West, 1994; Quinsey, Khanna, & Malcolm, 1998; Quinsey, Rice, & Harris, 1995).

@@@ (Barbaree et al., 2003; Fazel, Sjostedt, Langstrom, and Grann, in press; Hanson, 2002; Thornton, in press.)