NCJ Number
222296
Journal
Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 35 Issue: 4 Dated: April 2008 Pages: 484-504
Date Published
April 2008
Length
21 pages
Annotation
This study analyzed the offense patterns of every sex offender released from Minnesota correctional facilities between 1990 and 2002 who were reincarcerated for a new sex offense prior to 2006.
Abstract
Results suggests that residency restriction laws would likely offer, at best, a marginal impact on the incidence of sexual recidivism. Together with emerging research suggesting that sex offender registration and notification processes have a negligible effect on recidivism, this finding casts doubt on the efficacy of such policies. Based on the results, the chances that housing restrictions would be a deterrent appear small. During the past 16 years, not one sex offender released from a Minnesota Correctional Facility has been reincarcerated for a sex offense in which he made contact with a juvenile victim at or near a school, park, or daycare center close to his home, or other location included in residential restriction laws. It is unlikely that residency restrictions would have a deterrent effect because the types of offenses that such laws are designed to prevent are exceptionally rare and, in the case of Minnesota, virtually nonexistent in the past 16 years. Only a minority (35 percent) of the sex offenders and recidivists directly established contact with their victims. For those who did, they were much more likely to initiate contact with an adult. But even when offenders contacted juvenile victims directly, it was more often more than a mile away from where they lived. Sex offense rates are generally not related to the number of known sex offenders in the community; moreover, sex offenders are more likely to victimize someone they know. In one half of the cases, the offenders established contact with their victims, most of whom were juveniles, through their relationship with another person, usually an adult. Data were collected on sex offenders who recidivated with a new sex offense and were reincarcerated (n=224). Tables, notes, references, appendix