New Recidivism Study... Pass on to your State Representatives

http://www.ct.gov/opm/lib/opm/cjppd/cjresearch/recidivismstudy/sex_offender_recidivism_2012_final.pdf

Executive Summary

Although the term “sex offender” is commonly used to describe anyone who has been convicted of sex-crimes, it is important to recognize that individuals who have committed sex offenses do not constitute a single, homogenous population. Together they exhibit a wide range of criminal behaviors that may or may not include violence or contact with other persons. As a consequence, the risk, or likelihood, of committing new sex crimes is not consistent across all sex offender types.

This study tracked 14,398 men for a five-year period following their 2005 release or discharge from a CT prison in 2005. Every subsequent arrest, criminal conviction or reincarceration event was captured and analyzed to produce the 5-year recidivism rates for the group.
In addition to analyzing recidivism among all offenders released or discharged during 2005, the study identified five subgroups from the total cohort who were either convicted for sex offenses or thought to have been involved in criminal sexual crimes but not convicted. The five subgroups were:

• 1,395 men who had had a prior arrest for a sex-related offense

• 896 men who had a prior conviction for a sex-related offense

• 746 men who had served a prison sentence for a sex-related offense before being released in 2005

• 423 men, a subset of the 746, whose last prison sentence before release was for a sex-related offense, and

• 1,229 men who were assigned Sex Treatment Scores of 2 or higher by the Department of Correction prior to their 2005 release or discharge.

In 2005, 746 offenders who had served a prison sentence for a least one sex-related offense were released or discharged from prison. Over the next five years:

• 27 (3.6%) of these men were arrested and charged with a new sex crime.

• 20 (2.7%) were convicted for new sex offense, and

• 13 (1.7%) were returned to prison to serve a sentence for a new sex crime.

The sexual recidivism rates for the 746 sex offenders released in 2005 are much lower than what many in the public have been led to expect or believe. These low re-offense rates appear to contradict a conventional wisdom that sex offenders have very high sexual re-offense rates. The real challenge for public agencies is to determine the level of risk which specific offenders pose the public.

Recidivism data for each sex-offenders subgroup is presented in the Appendix.

In 2005, 37% of non-sex offenders completed their sentences in prison. In contrast, 79% of the 746 sex offenders who had served a prison sentence for a new sex crime were discharged directly from a prison facility at the end of their sentences (EOS). The reason the EOS discharge rate was so high for sex offenders reflects two facts: 1) the DOC did not release TS-eligible sex offenders into the community and 2) sex offenders were not accepted in most of the DOC’s residential, halfway house network. Almost 50% of sex offenders were sentenced to probation at the completion of their sentences compared to 33% for non-sex offenders.

According to this analysis, arrest on a prior sex charge was the single best predictor of being sentenced to prison for a new sex crime in the five years following release from prison. Of the 1,395 offenders who had been arrested on sex charges before 2005, 2.4% were sentenced to prison for new sex offenses within 5 years. This compares with a 1.9% rate among offenders who had a prior conviction for a sex crime, and a 1.7% rate for offenders who had served a prison sentence for a prior sex crime. This finding warrants further study. It suggests that conviction and incarceration for a sex crime exerts a positive impact on reducing future sex crimes.

The DOC-Sex Treatment Score was the 2nd best predictor of sexual recidivism. Among the 1,229 offenders with Sex Treatment Scores of 2 or higher, 2.3% were sentenced to prison for new sex offenses.

Connecticut employs a unique collaborative approach in supervising and treating sex offenders in the community. The approach links parole officers and probation officers, victim advocates and a non-profit provider of sex offender treatment and programming. Together these organizations design oversight and supervision plans for every offender.

Some sex offenders have extensive, violent non-criminal histories. Among the 195 offenders who had been convicted for Sex Assault 1 prior to 2005, 29.2% had also served a prison sentence for a burglary related crime; 13.3% had served a sentence for robbery. The high incidence of burglaries and robberies among this group indicates both a heightened willingness to use force and overstep boundaries. Among the entire population of male prisoners released in 2005, only 16% had been convicted of burglary-related charges and less than 8% had been convicted for a robbery.