Sex offender recidivism

All else being equal, the estimated recidivism rate should increase with each expansion of the definition; the broader the definition, the larger the recidivism estimate should appear. [...] Readers should be aware, however, that the answer to the simple question of sexual offence recidivism requires specifying the nature of the offences being considered. [...] In five of the samples, “conviction for a sexual offence” was used as the recidivism criteria, in another four samples both “charges and convictions for another sexual offence” was used as the recidivism criteria. [...] An overview of the samples is presented in Table 1. All the offenders were released from correctional institutions with the exception of the Manitoba Probation sample and about half of the offenders from the Washington sample, who received community sentences. [...] This study examined the 316 sexual offenders included in the complete sample of 3,180 federal offenders released by the CSC in the fiscal year 1983/1984.