Recidivism of Delaware Adult Sex Offenders Released From Prison in 2001

• NCJ Number: 222492
• Author(s): Charles J. Huenke Jr.; John P. O'Connell; Spencer B. Price; Philisa J. Weidlein-Crist
• Date Published: July 2007
• Length: 29 pages
• 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
• Note: Downloaded April 29, 2008

Annotation

This report presents results of a study measuring recidivism of adult sex offenders released from Delaware’s prisons in 2001 and provides a comparative analysis to a similar study conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Abstract

Highlights of findings in the offense categories of forcible rape, statutory rape, sexual contact and non-contact include: (1) of Delaware’s 82 sex offenders released from prisons in 2001, the associated sex offense involved a child victim in 80.5 percent of the cases; (2) more than one-quarter of the cohort of Delaware sex offenders were arrested for a sex offense prior to the one that led to the current prison stay; (3) about 73 percent of those whose prison sentences involved sexual contact were originally charged with forcible or statutory rape; (4) the 3 years following release showed offenders in the statutory rape and sexual contact groups continuing the high levels of criminal activity; (5) offenders whose victims were children were less likely than those with adult victims to be rearrested, reconvicted, or readmitted to custody within 3 years; (6) the 3 year recidivism rate for offenders with adult victims was 84.6 percent compared to 69.2 percent for offenders with child victims; (7) overall recidivism appeared to be higher for African-Americans than Whites; and (8) by age at release, the highest recidivism rate for all groups combined was in the 25 to 29 year-old range at 83.3 percent. Under a project designed to improve State criminal history records and initiated by the Justice Research and Statistics Association (JRSA) and the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the State of Delaware was chosen to conduct an analysis on sex offender recidivism. The study focused on sex offenders released from prison in 2001, and its design was modeled after a BJS study reported in Recidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994. BJS found that 43 percent of the sex offenders released within 3 years (n = 9,691) were rearrested for at least one new crime. Tables, figures, and technical notes