Department of Rehabilitation and Correction
April 2001
Ten-Year Recidivism Follow-Up Of 1989 Sex Offender Releases
Understand that "re commitment for a new crime" includes minor probation violations ranging from not reporting, to any failure to abide by any probation requirement. We know for a fact that probation officers often use any excuse possible to re-arrest a sex offender and they do. In one case, in Ohio, a released sex offender on probation was re-arrested because he shared a name with another sex offender in the county. In another, possession of an "R"-rated movie named "Kids" was used to re-arrest a sex offender on probation. And in another case, a sex offender on probation was threatened with arrest and charges for having a video security system at his residence.
The category of "re-committment for a technical violation " indicates that the sex offender was found to be in violation of his probation and re-incarcerated for violating some probation requirement (see above) . Therefore, the focus on this data should be on re-arrest for another sex crime. After all, this is what all the societal hysterical concern is all about:
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The baseline recidivism rate of sex offenders followed-up for ten years after
release from prison was 34%. This rate was comprised of:
Recommitment for a New Crime 22.3 %
- For Sex Offense 8.0 %
- For Non-Sex Related Offense 14.3 %
Recommitment for a Technical Violation 11.7 %
- For Sex Offense 1.3 %
- For Sex Lapse 1.7 %
- For Non-Sex Related Offense 8.7 %
The total sex-related recidivism rate, including technical violations of
supervision conditions, was 11.0%.
Recidivism rates differed considerably based on a victim typology:
Sex offender type.....................General recidivism.............. Sex recidivism
Rapists – (adult victims) ...........56.6% ................................17.5%
Child Molester – extrafamilial ..29.2% .................................8.7%
Child Molester – incest ............13.2% ................................. 7.4%
Sex offenders who returned for a new sex related offense did so within a few years of release. Of all the sex offenders who came back to an Ohio prison for
a new sex offense, one half did so within two years, and two-thirds within
three years.
Paroled Sex offenders completing basic sex offender programming (level 1)
while incarcerated appeared to have a somewhat lower recidivism rate than those
who did not have programming. This was true both for recidivism of any type
(33.9% with programming recidivated compared with 55.3% without
programming) and sex-related recidivism (7.1% with programming recidivated
compared with 16.5% without programming).
CONCLUSION:
The recidivism rate for child -victim sex offenders (outside family) for a new sex-related crime in Ohio is 8.7%
The recidivism rate for all sex offenders for a new sex-related crime in Ohio is 8.0%
This is hardly the exaggerated claims of recidivism made by the media and hysterical society.
Spread the word, educate society. Ignorance is dangerous.
These Ohio statistics are in line with federal United States Department of Justice data, which reports:
Recidivism Rates of Sexual Offenders (5.3% re-arrested, 3.3% of Child Victimizers re-arrested)
vs.
Recidivism Rates for NON- Sexual Offenders (67% re-arrested, 47% re-convicted)
See this page for USDOJ report: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/crimoff.htm#recidivFurthermore, see the REPORT TO THE OHIO CRIMINAL SENTENCING COMMISSION: SEX OFFENDERS JANUARY 2006
by the OHIO CRIMINAL SENTENCING COMMISSION
"Research has shown that sex
offenders recidivate at a lower rate than other offenders.
A review of 61 recidivism research studies
involving 24,000 sex offenders found that only 13.4 percent committed a new sex offense (Hanson and Morton-Burgon 2004). It further shows that when sex offenders do recidivate, they are more likely to commit a non-sex offense"
