Overview of the articles about

Recidivism

Endrass, J., Urbaniok F., Hammermeister LC, Benz C., Elbert T., Laubacher A., et al.; The consumption of Internet child pornography and violent and sex offending; in: BMC Psychiatry, July 14 2009  
There is an ongoing debate on whether consumers of child pornography pose a risk for hands-on sex offenses. Up until now, there have been very few studies which have analyzed the association between the consumption of child pornography and the subsequent perpetration of hands-on sex offenses. 
The aim of this study was to examine the recidivism rates for hands-on and hands-off sex offenses in a sample of child pornography users using a 6 year follow-up design. 
Conclusion: 
Consuming child pornography alone is not a risk factor for committing hands-on sex offenses – at least not for those subjects who had never committed a hands-on sex offense. The majority of the investigated consumers had no previous convictions for hands-on sex offenses. For those offenders, the prognosis for hands-on sex offenses, as well as for recidivism with child pornography, is favorable.

	Highlights 1
	Re-arrest Less Likely for Sex Offenders; November 16, 2003 THE ASSOCIATED PRESS  Sex offenders are less likely to be rearrested after their release from prison than other criminals, a government study finds. The study found 5.3 percent of sex offenders were arrested for another sex crime after their release. [...] Still, the numbers appeared to dispute the popular notion that sex offenders are incorrigible. Even among child molesters, [...] only 3.3 percent of those released in 1994 were arrested again for a crime against a child.
	Press release
	Short version with highlights 2

Hamilton, Melissa; The Efficacy Of Severe Child Pornography Sentencing - Empirical Validity Or Political Rhetoric? Temple Law Review ..  
[USA's] Congress’s appetite for expanding the scope of child pornography laws and increasing the length of prison sentences for child pornography offenders endures, despite other officials involved in federal sentencing questioning the necessity and proportionality of severe sentences. 
Emotions run high concerning issues involving the sexual exploitation of children. Moral panic has led Congress to pursue an ever-expanding federal regime of broadening the scope of child pornography laws and substantially increasing the length of sentences. 
Based on an assessment of the empirical evidence, the Congressional stance is best characterized as political rhetoric. Overall, empirical research fails to establish a correlation, much less a causative link, between viewing child pornography and contact offenses against children.

Hamilton, Melissa; Public Safety, Individual Liberty, and Suspect Science; Future Dangerousness Assessments And Sex Offender Laws; Temple Law Review, Apr 05 2010
In recent decades, federal, state, and local governments have become increasingly restrictive on the freedom and privacy of those labeled sexually violent predators (“SVP”s) in hopes of preventing further sexual violence. The most commonly used tools to manage SVPs are involuntary commitments for mental treatment, sex offender registration, and residency restrictions (hereinafter “SVP laws”).
In an effort to streamline the identification of sex offenders who pose a future danger and thus might be subject to SVP laws, officials place substantive legal emphasis on psychosexual evaluations by individuals accepted as experts. These experts are generally mental health practitioners who offer opinion evidence about an individual’s potential for future dangerousness, often using actuarial (statistical calculation of risk) assessments. 
This article critically analyzes whether future dangerousness assessments using actuarial tools are responsive to legal standards contained in SVP laws and whether courts, when confronted with such assessments, are adequately engaging in the gatekeeper role to accept only good science considering the evidentiary benchmarks of Daubert and Frye.
Specifically, this article concludes that because of uncritical reliance upon actuarial assessments of future dangerousness, legal professionals have largely failed to grasp the significant empirical 
limitations of these tests.

Hanson, R. Karl & Bussière, Monique T. , Les prédicteurs de la récidive chez les délinquants sexuels: une méta-analyse, Travaux publics et Services gouvernementaux Canada, 1996-04 PDF Article   PDF Tableaux   PDF Bibliographie   L'analyse ici présentée a permis de tracer un tableau quantitatif des facteurs de risque de la récidive chez les délinquants sexuels. En se basant sur 61 ensembles de données, il a été possible d'établir l'existence d'une relation significative entre le tiers environ des 165 variables et la récidive (p < 0,05), la corrélation étant d'au moins 0,10. Les mesures de la déviance sexuelle (par ex., préférences sexuelles déviantes, infractions sexuelles antérieures) et, à un moindre degré, les facteurs criminologiques généraux (par ex., âge, nombre total d'infractions antérieures) se sont révélés les meilleurs prédicteurs de la récidive de nature sexuelle. Les prédicteurs de la récidive non sexuelle et avec violence et de la récidive en général étaient semblables aux prédicteurs de la récidive relevés chez les criminels n'ayant pas commis d'infractions d'ordre sexuel. Toutefois, aucun facteur n'était suffisamment lié à la récidive pour que son usage exclusif soit justifié. Il faut poursuivre les recherches pour cerner des facteurs de risque dynamiques, c'est-à-dire susceptibles de changer.

Hanson, Karl R., & Harris, Andrew, Dynamic Predictors Of Sexual Recidivism, 1998-1,
Corrections Research, Department of the Solicitor General Canada
Carefully monitoring the risk indicators identified in this study should help officers to provide graduated and responsive interventions well before the point of no return.
PDF Text     PDF References     PDF Appendix
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Hanson, R. Karl & Harris, Andrew, Les prédicteurs dynamiques de la récidive sexuelle, 1998 - 01, Recherche correctionnelle, Ministère du Solliciteur général du Canada    PDF  Une surveillance attentive des indicateurs de risque cernés dans l’étude ici présentée devrait aider les agents à intervenir de façon progressive et adaptée bien avant qu’il soit trop tard.

Hartley, Eric, Molesters getting a slap on the wrist? Lack of jail time in cases sparks sentencing debate; The Capital, Annapolis, Md., April 22, 2007
The two recent county cases, among others, have sparked public debate about how the courts handle child sex abusers. 
On one side are those who say courts are too lenient and need to impose long prison sentences to protect the public. 
On the other side, some judges and experts say a psychiatric problem can't be cured by incarceration and the best way to protect children in the long run is to give offenders mental health treatment.

Summary in English

Study by Labie, Ian:] 
Trow, Richard, Paedophile programmes work; STUFF National News [New Zealand], 03 November 2003 
Treating paedophiles in the community significantly reduces sexual re-offending, a study shows. [...] Offenders who completed the programmes had a recidivism rate of 5 per cent. In two control groups that did not receive treatment, rates were 21 per cent and 25 per cent [...].

Muller, Heather , Child molester unlikely to re-offend, expert says;  eurekareporter.com, 16 October 2007
Park argued that the program itself was fundamentally flawed, focusing too much on details of past offenses in an attempt to prevent relapses. Preventing relapses should be the goal of sex-offender treatment plans, Park agreed, but said the SOCP approach had been criticized for instilling a sense of shame in participants. 
"Shame," he said, "is looking at yourself as scum." It's a negative emotion that, in Park's opinion, actually increases the risk of re-offense.

Myths & Facts about Recidivism in: Ipce newsletter E18, February 2005
- Rearrest Less Likely for Sex Offenders; November 16, 2003 By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
- Paedophile programmes work - study; Richard Trow; 03 November 2003 STUFF National News [New Zealand]

Naerssen, A.X.van, The Sexual Experience of Young People, Staatscourant [NL] 246, Thursday, 19 December 1996.
[... C]onsider recidivism with respect to morals offenses. This varies, according to the minister, from 20% to 40%. Which implies that 80% to 60% do not commit repeat offenses.

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Sometimes the claim is made that the demonised paedophiles who commit sexual offences against children are especially demonic in the persistence with which they offend, but this too is demonstrably a myth. Hanson and Bussiere, corrections researchers in the Canadian Solicitor General's office, have brought together and re-analysed the data from every available study on sexual offender recidivism, from anywhere in the world in the last 50 years, a total of 61 studies, totalling some 23,300 cases. Their meta-analysis has been published by the American Psychological Association. Most of the data comes from the last 15 years and the overall figure for sexual offence recidivism by sexual offenders is found to be 13.4%. This is low in comparison with offenders in general, and firmly refutes claims that sexual offending is necessarily some kind of addiction or compulsion. One particularly interesting finding is that in general sexual offenders against children re-offend less than violent sexual offenders (e.g. rapists).

Ray, Eric, Prof to Sentencing Commission: Sex Offenders Can Be Treated; KCPW News, Aug 07, 2008 
"When we looked at people going through the system for an extended period of time, the overall recidivism rate for offenders that came back to the system for new sex offenses was approximately 10%,"

Rivedal, Karen, Sex crimes that shock most are rare; Madison.com, 608-252-6106, March 4, 2007 
Federal statistics show such crimes, especially involving children, are very rare. Less than 1 percent of all sex crimes involve murder, and the vast majority of sexually abused children - 60 percent to 80 percent - are molested by family members or close friends and acquaintances. Nearly 90 percent of adult victims know their assailants, according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. 

Rogers, Amanda, Recidivism Studies Expose Fraud. Multiple State’s Sex Offender Recidivism Studies Expose Fraud Upon The American Public By Lawmakers And Mainstream Media;    Amanda Rogers, The American Chronicle, September 13, 2007  
The notion that most sex offences are committed by strangers, that sex offenders have high rates of recidivism, and that treatment does not work is NOT supported by the extensive and growing body of research regarding registered sex offenders. Here is a glimpse of what these studies reveal, which proves that what is happening is the exact opposite of what the American people are repeatedly being told.

Schultz, Pamela D., Treatment for sex offenders can protect community; But the problem of readmitting perpetrators to society will never be solved if we allow misplaced fear and paranoia to guide us; OPINION, By Pamela D. Schultz; Newsday [Melville, NY], December 3, 2006.
According to the National Center on Institutions and Alternatives, untreated sex offenders sentenced to prison have a recidivism rate of 18.5 percent, compared with around 25 percent for drug offenses and 30 percent for violent offenses. 
Intense psychological counseling has been shown to lower sex offenders' recidivism quite effectively. Although treatment cuts recidivism of rapists by a few percent, treatment can cut the rate of recidivism in child molesters by up to one half. 

Smith, Jennifer, Residency laws for sex offenders under microscope; Restrictions aim to prevent repeat crimes, but critics say all laws do is prevent offenders from rebuilding lives; Newsday [Melville, NY], December 3, 2006 
1) Article 
2) Voices in the sex offender debate - Several authors 
3) Pending and and current laws on LI 
Experts in sex-offender treatment and recidivism say there is little proof such measures keep communities safer or prevent sex offenders from striking again. [...] 
"Most sex offenders do not re-offend," said Karl Hanson, a senior research officer with Public Safety Canada who studied sex offenders for two decades. On average, he said, sex offenders have a 10 percent to 15 percent recidivism rate five years after their release; that rate rises to about 20 percent after 10 years.

UK Reoffending statistics, Daily Telegraph, 23rd March 2001. 

Quotes & highlights from: 
Wetzstein, Cheryl, The Complex Nature of Child Sexual Abuse; in: Child Abuse. Ed. Bryan J. Grapes. Contemporary Issues Companion Series. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2001. 

[A] 1994 paper issued by the Washington State Institute for Public Policy, [reports] recidivism rates for untreated sex offenders ranged as follows: 

Zessen, Gertjan van, A Model for Group Counseling with Male Pedophiles, Journal of Homosexuality Volume 20, 1/2, 1990 
Group treatment programs for pedophiles are often designed for populations of convicted men in closed institutions with limited application to other populations. Treatment is usually focused on reducing the ‘deviant” sexual arousal and/or acquiring hetero-social skills and eventually establishing the ability to engage in adult heterosexual relationships. A six-week highly structured program is presented to five men in a non-residential setting. In addition to individual psychotherapy, group counseling is offered.