Reply #25: Common misunderstanding

[George_S]

Contrary to the generalized view of sexual offenders as predatory strangers prowling for victims in public places, relatively few sexual crimes (23%) involved a stranger to the victim. When the victim is a child or a youth, the rate of stranger victimization is even lower, at 16%. In over one-third of the incidents involving a child or youth, the accused was, in fact, a family member. Most sexual assaults, over two-thirds, occur in homes, with the remainder occurring in public areas (17%) or commercial/ public institutions (16%). A sex offender registry will not protect people from victimization by a parent or other family member in their homes.

A common belief, and one that seems to have been critical to the development of sex offender registries and other notification systems, is that all sex offenders re-offend sexually. A followup study of sex offenders released from federal penitentiaries in Canada found that less than one in 10 were convicted of a new sexual offence during the follow-up period which averaged 3.5 years. A review of 61 studies dating from 1943 to 1995 relating to sex offender recidivism found the overall sexual recidivist rate was 13% over a five year follow-up period. One longterm follow-up study in California found that 20% of sex offenders first arrested in 1973 had been rearrested for a sex offence by 1988. This means that 4 out of 5 sex offenders did not re-offend sexually over a 15 year period

http://www.johnhoward.on.ca/Library/Fctsheet/16-3.htm