Mature 46 Year Sex

While recidivism has long been a concern of criminal justice practitioners and policymakers, it has received renewed attention in recent years due to the record number of convicted offenders living in our communities.2 Research has demonstrated that repeat offenders account for a disproportionate amount of crime and that offenders released from prison are arrested at rates 30 to 45 times higher than the general population (Rosenfeld, Wallman, & Formango, 2005). As a result, there is widespread recognition that recidivism has a direct impact on public safety and that recidivism reduction should be a key goal of the criminal justice system. This is particularly true with regard to crimes that are sexual in nature, given their impact on individual victims and the larger community (see Chapter 1, "Incidence and Prevalence of Sexual Offending," in the Adult section).

mature 46 year sex

Most recidivism studies search for new recorded criminal events and place offenders without the new events in the nonrecidivism category. Heil and colleagues (2009) conducted a recidivism study that accounted for every offender and excluded from the final calculations those who moved out of state, who died or whose residence could not be verified. This reduced the sample size by more than 17 percent, all of whom would have been calculated as "nonrecidivists" in traditional studies. Not surprisingly, one- and five-year recidivism rates for this group of 1,124 prisoners were higher than those reported in many other studies that used follow-up periods that were similar in length. The one- and five-year recidivism rates found by the researchers were, respectively: 3.9 percent and 10.8 percent for a sex crime rearrest, 26.3 percent and 38.1 percent for a violent crime rearrest and 52.6 percent and 77.7 percent for any arrest.

Perhaps the largest single study of sex offender recidivism conducted to date was carried out by Langan, Schmitt and Durose (2003). The study, which was published by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, examined the recidivism patterns of 9,691 male sex offenders released from prisons in 15 states in 1994. These offenders accounted for about two-thirds of all male sex offenders released from state prisons in the United States that year. Using a three-year postrelease follow-up period, rearrest and reconviction rates for sexual and other crimes were reported for the entire sample of sex offenders as well as for different categories of sex offenders.

The researchers found a sexual recidivism rate of 5.3 percent for the entire sample of sex offenders based on an arrest during the three-year follow-up period. The violent and overall arrest recidivism rates for the entire sample of sex offenders were much higher; 17.1 percent of sex offenders were rearrested for a violent crime and 43 percent were rearrested for a crime of any kind during the follow-up period. Of the 9,691 sex offenders released from prison in 1994, 3.5 percent were reconvicted for a sex crime and about one-quarter (24 percent) were reconvicted for an offense of any kind during the follow-up period. Nearly four out of every 10 (38.6 percent) sex offenders in the study were returned to prison within three years of their release due to the commission of a new crime or a technical violation of their release conditions.

As part of their study, Langan, Schmitt and Durose (2003) conducted a comparative analysis of recidivism among sex offenders and non-sex offenders. Findings were based on the three-year postrelease offending of 9,691 sex offenders and 262,420 non-sex offenders released from prison in 1994. The analysis revealed that once released, the sex offenders had a lower overall rearrest rate than non-sex offenders (43 percent compared to 68 percent), but their sex crime rearrest rate was four times higher than the rate for non-sex offenders (5.3 percent compared to 1.3 percent). Similar patterns are consistently found in other studies that compare sex offender and non-sex offender recidivism (see, e.g., Sample & Bray, 2003; Hanson, Scott & Steffy, 1995).

Another important study, because of its large sample size, was conducted by Sample and Bray (2003). The researchers examined the arrest recidivism of 146,918 offenders who were originally arrested in Illinois in 1990. Arrestees categorized as sex offenders (based on their most serious charge in 1990 being a sex offense) had one-year, three-year and five-year rearrest rates for a new sexual offense of 2.2 percent, 4.8 percent and 6.5 percent, respectively.9 The three-year sexual recidivism rate of 4.8 percent for these sex offender arrestees was similar to the three-year rate (5.3 percent) that Langan, Schmitt and Durose (2003) reported for sex offenders released from prison in 1994.

Harris and Hanson generated recidivism estimates based on new charges or convictions for sexual offenses using five-, 10- and 15-year follow-up periods for several categories of sex offenders. The five-year sexual recidivism estimate for all sex offenders in the analysis was 14 percent. The 10- and 15-year sexual recidivism rate estimates for all sex offenders were 20 percent and 24 percent, respectively. Using the same data set, Hanson, Morton and Harris (2003) reported that the 20-year sexual recidivism rate for the sample was 27 percent.

One of the most important findings that emerged from the Harris and Hanson (2004) analysis was that the 15-year sexual recidivism rate for offenders who already had a prior conviction for a sexual offense was nearly twice that for first-time sex offenders (37 percent compared to 19 percent). Another important finding was that the rate of reoffending decreased the longer offenders had been offense-free. While 14 percent of the offenders in the analysis were sexual recidivists after five years of follow-up, only 7 percent of the offenders who were offense-free at that time sexually recidivated during the next five follow-up years. For offenders who were offense-free after 15 years, the observed sexual recidivism rate was only 4 percent over an additional five years of follow-up.

Hanson and colleagues (2009) conducted a meta-analysis of 23 recidivism outcome studies to determine whether the risk, need and responsivity principles associated with effective interventions for general offenders also apply to sex offender treatment.10 (For more on intervention principles, see Chapter 7, "Effectiveness of Treatment for Adult Sex Offenders," in the Adult section.) This meta-analysis produced an average sexual recidivism rate of 10.9 percent for treated offenders and 19.2 percent for untreated comparison offenders, based on an average followup period of 4.7 years.11 The average overall recidivism rate (for any crime) was 31.8 percent for treated sex offenders and 48.3 percent for untreated comparison subjects.

One of the largest meta-analyses of studies of the effectiveness of sex offender treatment was conducted by Lösel and Schmucker (2005). The analysis included 69 independent studies and a combined total of 22,181 subjects.13 The researchers found an average sexual recidivism rate of 11.1 percent for treated sex offenders and 17.5 percent for untreated sex offenders based on an average follow-up period of slightly more than five years.14 The average recidivism rate for any crime was 22.4 percent for treated sex offenders and 32.5 percent for untreated sex offenders.

For example, McGrath and colleagues (2007) compared a group of 104 adult male sex offenders who received treatment, supervision and periodic polygraph exams with a matched group of 104 sex offenders who received the same type of treatment and supervision services but no polygraph exams. Based on a five-year follow-up period, 5.8 percent of the offenders in the group that received polygraph testing and 6.7 percent of the offenders in the group that did not receive polygraph testing were charged with a new sex offense. The general recidivism rates for the polygraph and nonpolygraph groups (39.4 percent and 34.6 percent, respectively) were more than five times higher than each group's sexual recidivism rate.

In a study employing an even larger sample (403 treated and 321 untreated sex offenders) and an average follow-up period of 12 years, Hanson, Broom and Stephenson (2004) reported sexual recidivism rates of 21.1 percent for the treated offenders and 21.8 percent for the untreated offenders. The general and violent recidivism rates for both groups were more than double their sexual recidivism rates. Treated sex offenders had a violent crime recidivism rate of 42.9 percent and an overall recidivism rate of 56.6 percent. Untreated sex offenders in the study had a violent crime recidivism rate of 44.5 percent and an overall recidivism rate of 60.4 percent.

Olver, Nicholaichuk, Gu and Wong (2012, p.406) also reported sexual and violent crime recidivism rates in their study of sex offender treatment outcomes in a cohort of sex offenders released from prison in Canada. Based on a mean post-release follow-up period of 11.7 years, the researchers reported sexual recidivism rates of 10.7 percent for treated sex offenders (n=616) and 20.2 for untreated sex offenders (n=104). Violent crime recidivism rates for the treated and untreated groups were 26.5 percent and 44.2 percent, respectively. Again, these rates are more than two times higher than those found for sexual recidivism.

More recently, Mercado and colleagues (2013) examined the recidivism rates of sexual offenders as part of a larger study of sex offender management, treatment effectiveness and civil commitment. The researchers reported that both treated and untreated offenders in the study had recidivism rates of 5 percent based on reconviction for a new sexual offense over an average 6.5 year follow-up period. By comparison, the general recidivism rates reported for treated and untreated sex offenders in the study were 25 percent and 51.7 percent, respectively. 041b061a72