Mariel Alper, Ph.D., Matthew R. Durose, BJS Statisticians
May 30, 2019 NCJ 251773
This study compares released prisoners whose most serious commitment offense was rape or sexual assault to all other released prisoners, in terms of their characteristics and recidivism patterns. It is BJS's first recidivism study on sex offenders with a 9-year follow-up period. It tracks a representative sample of prisoners released in 2005 in 30 states (these states were responsible for 77% of all state prisoners released nationwide) and examines their arrests through 2014. The source data are from prisoner records reported by state departments of corrections to BJS's National Corrections Reporting Program and criminal-history records from the FBI's Interstate Identification Index and state repositories via the International Justice and Public Safety Network.
Highlights:
Within 9 years of their release from prison in 2005--
- Rape and sexual assault offenders were less likely than other released prisoners to be arrested, but they were more likely than other released prisoners to be arrested for rape or sexual assault.
- Released sex offenders were more than three times as likely as other released prisoners to be arrested for rape or sexual assault (7.7% versus 2.3%).
- About two-thirds (67%) of released sex offenders were arrested for any crime, compared to about five-sixths (84%) of other released prisoners.
- Half of released sex offenders had a subsequent arrest that led to a conviction.
- Released sex offenders accounted for 5% of releases in 2005 and 16% of arrests for rape or sexual assault during the 9-year follow-up period.
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Recidivism of Released Sex Offenders
Sex offenders released from prison are three times as likely as other released offenders to be arrested for a new sex crime within nine years of release.
Sex offenders released from prison are less likely than other offenders to be arrested for a new crime within nine years of release.
Both of these statements are true, according to a study released today by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics. See the spin potential?
I predict that this study will be exploited in numerous statistics crimes within a year of its release.
Here is the BJS announcement:
Follow the link above for links to the full report and data.
It's also virtually certain that released drug dealers are much more likely to be rearrested for dealing drugs than the average offender, and that released forgers are much more likely to be rearrested for forgery than the average offender. So the conclusion that sex offenders are more likely to be rearrested for sex offences is not interesting.
When a drug dealer might be released from prison (say early, or on parole, or because you are reconsidering the sentencing ranges), do you consider their propensity to commit sex crimes, or do you mostly worry about them returning to deal drugs? If the second, the relative rate of sex crimes between drug dealers and those already convicted of sex crimes is irrelevant to the discusison.
On the other hand, the probability of reoffence is very important for the policy questions -- so naturally that statistic will be the most quoted one. Without doubt the recividism rate is not sufficient by itself to make policy, because the severity of the crimes also matters -- but the argument must center on these two factors: if sex offenders are less likely to reoffend, but the offences they commit are more severe, then you might be able to justify longer sentences or restrictions on parole. Conversely, since the fact that people who have committed a sex offence are (compared to other criminals) more likely to commit further sex crimes is not unexpected it is already incorporated in our policy and is not a useful driver of changes to the policy.