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In April 2007, the Minnesota Department of Corrections1 (DOC) published results of a study on 3,166 sex offenders who were released from the state's correctional facilities between 1990 and 2003. Recidivism measures included new arrests, new convictions, and incarceration for new offenses that occurred in Minnesota. This report draws upon the data collected by the DOC, but focuses solely on the sexual recidivism rates2 of the 970 adult sex offenders who were placed under Hennepin County's supervision when released from prison between 1990 and 2003. It is important to bear in mind that during the study's lengthy follow-up period significant changes occurred in how the criminal justice system manages sex offenders. Beginning in the late 1980's, public outcry resulting from high profile sex crimes prompted the enactment of stricter laws and tighter supervision guidelines. For example, risk levels (Level 3, 2, or 1) were not assigned to sex offenders until 1997.

To most people, the sex offender registry seems to be a valiant government effort. Popular assumptions are made about registered people without really knowing anything about who they are and how they got on the list. But as a man who grew up reading about men being sent to prison for consensual sex with each other (until the 2003 Lawrence decision decriminalized it1), I find myself skeptical that things are more noble this time around. Since 2007, I've been doing research on the registry and related laws. With hundreds of thousands of people advertised as "sex offenders" on government websites across the country, I looked into the laws and procedures that landed them there. A lot of the results were frightening. Thousands of people are on the registry for the rest of their lives as a result of behavior when they were children or adolescents, as young as eleven years old.2 A woman is on the registry for breastfeeding her baby and several men are on it for public urination.3 Perhaps most incredible, US federal sentencing laws make the penalty for taking a picture of a 17-year-old boy with an erection worse than the penalty for killing him!4 These findings became the core of this website, SOL Research.

Allan, et. al. {2003} conducted a retrospective evaluation of the files of 326 JSOs convicted in the Western Australia Children‟s Court from January 1990 to June 1998. Follow-up time from sentencing until the study was finished ranged up to almost 9 years with an average at-risk time of 4.2 years. Thirty-one JSOs or 9.5% of the youth were convicted of new sexual offenses with six of the recidivists convicted of more than one subsequent offense. Of the 326 youth studied, slightly more than 66% were convicted of non-sexual offenses after conviction for a first sexual offense.

In 1994, prisons in 15 States released 9,691 male sex offenders. The 9,691 men are two-thirds of all the male sex offenders released from State prisons in the United States in 1994. This report summarizes findings from a survey that tracked the 9,691 for 3 full years after their release. The report documents their "recidivism," as measured by rates of rearrest, reconviction, and reimprisonment during the 3-year followup period. This report gives recidivism rates for the 9,691 combined total. It also separates the 9,691 into four overlapping categories and gives recidivism rates for each category: - 3,115 released rapists - 6,576 released sexual assaulters - 4,295 released child molesters - 443 released statutory rapists. The 9,691 sex offenders were released from State prisons in these 15 States: Arizona, Maryland, North Carolina, California, Michigan, Ohio, Delaware, Minnesota, Oregon, Florida, New Jersey, Texas, Illinois, New York, and Virginia.