Are the low rates of rearrest of pedophiles due to them being unlikely to offend again, or are they due to the fact that it's very unlikely to have victims of child sex abuse step forward?
We had a public defender come speak to my class again and she told us that sex offenders have an incredibly low rate of recidivism. However, I know that people who rape people, particularly people who rape children are remarkably likely to reoffend. I also know that there is no "cure" to pedophilia or to sexual sadism.
I was wondering if the "Low rates of recidivism" in pedophiles are due to actual lack of reoffending, or due to the fact that children are very unlikely report sexual abuse?
First, what is the average, median age when first caught and sentenced? My guess is that most are not young.
Second, what is the average, median age when released? Pedophiles frequently get long sentences.
These are the 1st inquiries to be considered.
Studies show that length of time in prison has little or no relation to recidivism. What does correlate is age when released, especially for street crimes. Level of testosterone might be the best indicator. Pedophiles just might start out older than most offenders and end up older when they get out. Low juices. And low juices might be a stronger key to sex offenses than other types. Violence is also related to testosterone and most sex offenses are acts of violence. Twice the reason to consider release age in this inquiry.
There are a number of points I'd like to make here:
The first is that recidivism rates are reported for identified sex offenders, including offenders with child victims and including those who have been clinically assessed and identified as having pedophilia.
As I've written and spoken about for a long time, there is an important assocation between pedophilia and sexual offending against children but some persons with pedophilia have no known sexual offending -- they deny it, there are no reports to child protection, there are no criminal investigations -- and many offenders do not have pedophilia.
Going back to the original post, how do you know that people with pedophilia who have raped children are very likely to reoffend?
The follow-up studies that have been conducted show that sex offenders, as a group, are relatively unlikely to reoffend, e.g., Hanson and Bussiere found a rate across multiple studies of approx 13% after 4-5 years. The rate is higher among those with pedophilia, esp over the longer term, but it's not at the very high rate unless they are also psychopathic or highly antisocial.
I agree that there are multiple factors that affect recidivism rates, such as source of data, length of follow-up, and risk levels of the group one is following. The biggest is probably non-reporting, as most recidivism studies rely on official criminal records and we know many victims do not disclose.
Here is a canadien study and a meta-analysis that answer some of your questions
https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/sx-ffndr-rcdvsm/sx-ffndr-rcdvsm-eng.pdf
https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/2004-02-prdctrs-sxl-rcdvsm-pdtd/2004-02-prdctrs-sxl-rcdvsm-pdtd-eng.pdf
Thank you Marc - this is amazing and very very interesting. From glancing at the rates they vary from 5-35%, and frequently seem to be around 20-25%. So for me this then begs the question of what is meant by a low rate. From an offender/treatment point of view, "only" 2 -3 of every 10 will reoffend, but from a public safety point of view, 25% reoffending may seem "high".
There are two different situations. The recidivism isn't correctly applicable in case of simple sexual orientation and can be used as the juridical term in case of law transgresssion by the person with this type of sexual orientation. The pedophilia is the manifestation of the illegal behaviour, but it must not be confused with the natural pedophilic sexual orientation (DSM-5). I wrote the book on this theme. The crime consist's in the constriction, what confuse usially the orientation with the concluded act of pedophilia.
The pedophilic sexual orientation is the base for loving the children (as in case of heterosexual love, homosexual love or other types of love). The pedophilia is "loving of children": comunication and phisical contact. In this case we can have a normal love behavoiour when there not any phisical damages for the object of loving and when there are the damages and costriction we can speak about the illegal fact. The same case is rape (illegal sex, unwanted sex, unwanted phisical contact with or without phisical damages).
The sexual orientation can be changed, but the focus is the educational aspect and moral levels of the pedophile.
There are people with repressed pedophilic orientation, pedophiles (people that have pedophilic behaviour) and sex offenders (phisical damages, unwanted sex or relations).
For this reason I think that in any case the pedophilic orientation must be considered one of the sex offender characteristics but not the cause of the rape. The cause of rape is the immoral aspects, uncontrollable tendency of sexual offender of his pathologies.
The answer is: the recidivism in this case will be high without teaching to the sex offender normal sexual behaviour (alterantive sexual behaviour). A good manners must be educated because in other case nothig will be changed. The punishment (prison) without the sex education will'nt product a big results.
In my experience as a law enforcement officer for 30 years before I became an academic, pedophiles are repeat offenders. This usually occurs until they are physically too old to offend any more. The recidivism rates are often misleading because they sometimes only measure for 5 or 10 years rather than a lifetime. The other factor is that criminals do not always get caught. Look at the sex offenses coming out in the Pennsylvania Attorney General's investigation with the Catholic church after 40 years. However, we often misclassify all sex offenders as pedophiles (i.e. an 19 year old person who has consensual sex with a 15 year old). While they are a sex offender and guilty of statutory rape, they are not necessarily a pedophile.
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