Citation

Thornton D, Hanson RK, Kelley SM, Mundt JC. Sex. Abuse 2019; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Affiliation

Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center, Madison, WI, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1079063219871573

PMID

31478439

Abstract

Although individuals with a history of sexual crime are often viewed as a lifelong risk, recent research has drawn attention to consistent declines in recidivism risk for those who remain offense free in the community. Because these declines are predictable, this article demonstrates how evaluators can use the amount of time individuals have remained offense free to (a) extrapolate to lifetime recidivism rates from rates observed for shorter time periods, (b) estimate the risk of sexual recidivism for individuals whose current offense is nonsexual but who have a history of sexual offending, and (c) calculate yearly reductions in risk for individuals who remain offense free in the community. In addition to their practical utility for case-specific decision making, these estimates also provide researchers an objective, empirical method of quantifying the extent to which individuals have desisted from sexual crime.

Language: en

Keywords

desistance; extrapolation; residual risk; sexual recidivism