Delaware Sex Offenders: Profiles and Criminal Justice System Outcomes

• NCJ Number: 223697
• Author(s): Philisa J. Weidlein-Crist; John P. O'Connell Jr.
• Date Published: January 2008
• Length: 67 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2005-BJ-CX-K035
• Sponsoring Agency: Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS)
• Corporate Author: Delaware Statistical Analysis Ctr
• Sale Source: Delaware Statistical Analysis Ctr
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Statistics
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This report provides an overview of sex offenders in the State of Delaware, providing detailed information on sex offender population, age, gender, and ethnicity, relationship to victims, criminal history, conviction, sentencing, and recidivism.

Abstract

The overwhelming majority of sex offenders within the sample were male. The age of offenders at the time of the sex offense incident ranged from 11 to 79 years with the largest group of offenders between the ages of 22 and 25 years old. The majority of the sample was White (53.7 percent) with the remaining, African-American (45.5 percent) and Asian (0.8 percent). Additional highlights of the report include: (1) average number of prior arrests was 15; (2) most victims of sex offenders were juveniles (77 percent under 18); (3) 89 percent of victims were female; (4) 89 percent of the offenders were older than their victims; (4) 84 percent of Superior Court sex offender cases resulted in conviction; (5) cases with juvenile victims had an 85 percent conviction rate, those with an adult victim had a 43 percent conviction rate; (6) 24 percent received a prison term greater than 1 year, and 20 percent received a jail term of less than 1 year; (7) most convicted sex offenders were required to register at Tier II (moderate risk) (40 percent) while 23 percent registered at Tier III (high risk); and (8) for sex offenders at-risk for at least 2 years, 86 percent had been rearrested. This study supported by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics provides a more complete background of serious sex offenses in Delaware offering a better understanding of the effectiveness of sex offender public safety efforts and penalties, as well as the possibilities for rehabilitation and reduction in recidivism. The study sample of 385 offenders contains sex offenders who have been previously convicted of a sex crime, offenders arrested in the past for a sex offense who have been convicted, and offenders never previously arrested for a sex offense. Tables, appendixes A and B