Section 3: SEX OFFENDER RECIDIVISM (pdf)
Data at a Glance
• 3.55% of sex offenders on parole with CDCR had committed new sex offenses by the time the conclusion of their three-year parole period.
• A ten-year follow-up study of 879 sex offenders in the state of Ohio reported that when using sex offense conviction as the outcome measurement, of 34 % of sex offenders who have re-offended, only 8 % were re-committed for a new sex crime, plus 3 % for a technical violation judged to be related to a potential new sex crime, while the other 22% reoffended for non-sexual offenses.
Solid information about the recidivism of sex offenders is one of the key building blocks for good policy and effective practice in sex offender management. If it were not for the concern that an identified sex offender may offend again in the future and create another victim, the questions about how to best manage sex offenders living in California communities would not be of such intense interest. Knowing how likely it is that an individual sex offender or a certain type of sex offender might re-offend can drive many decisions. Similarly, knowing what interventions actually reduce the chances that a sex offender will re-offend is also extremely important.
Existing data indicates that the majority of sex offenders do not re-offend sexually over time (Harris & Hanson, 2004). Additionally, research studies over the past two decades have consistently indicated that recidivism rates for sex offenders are, in reality, lower than the re-offense rates for most other types of offenders. In a longitudinal study that followed 4,742 known sex offenders over a period of 15 years, 24% were charged with or convicted of, a new sexual offense (Harris & Hanson, 2004). The U.S. Department of Justice found that 5% of 9,691 sex offenders released from prisons in 1994 were re-arrested for new sex crimes within three years. Recent research data from California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation indicate that fewer than 4% of the convicted sex offenders released to parole in 2003 were returned for a new sex offense over the course of a three year period of living in the community under parole supervision (CDCR Research, 2007).