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Recidivism Rates Compared, 2005 - 2007, is the first comprehensive report published by the Indiana Department of Correction that details the recidivism rates of offenders released from incarceration in Indiana. This report presents recidivism rates for offenders released from the custody of the Indiana Department of Correction for the time period 2002 through 2004. This report defines recidivism as a return to incarceration in the Indiana Department of Correction within three years of the offenders release date. For example, offenders released in calendar year 2004, who returned to prison for either a new conviction or technical violation during 2004, 2005, 2006, or 2007, but within three years of release, would be counted in the recidivism rate for 2007.

As interest and concern over sex offenders has increased, so have efforts to control the extent to which they reoffend. As a result, the State of Minnesota has enforced civil commitment statutes, created a sex offender registry, implemented community notification, enhanced the penalties for sex offenders, and increased both the intensity and length of post-release supervision. In examining recidivism among 3,166 sex offenders released from a Minnesota Correctional Facility (MCF) between 1990 and 2002, this report addresses the following question: What are the factors associated with sex offender recidivism?

Civil commitment of mentally disordered persons in the United States was generally limited to persons who were clinically and judicially determined to have psychotic disorders, until 2 U.S. Supreme Court decisions in 1997 and 2002 sanctioned the commitment of nonpsychotic sex offenders who had completed their prison sentences. Such commitments are based on diagnoses of paraphilias and personality disorders - often using the miscellaneous "not otherwise specified" designations for these diagnostic categories. These diagnoses have poor conceptual validity and low interrater reliability. Accordingly, civil commitments that are based on diagnoses of such nonpsychotic disorders have a weak foundation.

The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA)1, which mandates a national registry of people convicted of sex offenses and expands the type of offenses for which a person must register, applies to both adults and children. By July 2009, all states must comply with SORNA or risk losing 10 percent of the state's allocated Byrne Grant money, which states generally use to enforce drug laws and support law enforcement. In the last two years, some states have extensively analyzed the financial costs of complying with SORNA. These states have found that implementing SORNA in their state is far more costly than the penalties for not being in compliance. JPI's analysis finds that in all 50 states, the first-year costs of implementing SORNA outweigh the cost of losing 10 percent of the state's Byrne Grant. Most of the resources available to states would be devoted to the administrative maintenance of the registry and notification, rather than targeting known serious offenders. Registries and notification have not been proven to protect communities from sexual offenses, and may even distract from more effective approaches.

Managing sex offenders effectively is among the key public policy interests and priorities among lawmakers and the constituents they represent.1 State and national lawmaking bodies throughout the country have enacted large numbers of sex offender-specific laws in a relatively short period of time, primarily to increase mandatory prison sentences, provide for closer tracking and monitoring, and increase restrictions and sanctions.2 However, evidence regarding the impact and effectiveness of many of these laws and policies is limited. Furthermore, while these laws presumably reflect public demand and interests, relatively little is known about the public's awareness and attitudes about these policies.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is committed to improving the justice system's response to crimes against children. OJJDP recognizes that children are at increased risk for crime victimization. Not only are children the vic-tims of many of the same crimes that victimize adults, they are subject to other crimes, like child abuse and neglect, that are specific to childhood. The impact of these crimes on young victims can be devastating, and the violent or sexual victimization of chil-dren can often lead to an intergenerational cycle of violence and abuse. The purpose of OJJDP's Crimes Against Children Series is to improve and expand the Nation's efforts to better serve child victims by presenting the latest information about child victimization, including analyses of crime victimization statistics, studies of child victims and their spe-cial needs, and descriptions of programs and approaches that address these needs.

Original Article08/12/2013By Paul HammelLINCOLN - A newly released study (PDF) questions whether public safety has improved because of a four-year-old state law that requires all sex offenders to be listed on a public website. The law, known as ...

Title: Sex Offender Registries as a Tool for Public Safety: Views ... Excerpt: Sex Offender Registries as a Tool for Public Safety 2 distinct differences. Responsibility for maintaining the registry is held by different state agencies, including ...

Title: Sex Offender Registries as a Tool for Public Safety: Views ... Excerpt: Sex Offender Registries as a Tool for Public Safety 2 distinct differences. Responsibility for maintaining the registry is held by different state agencies, including ...

Sex Offender Recidivism Rates Accurately measuring the rate at which sex offenders recidivate is difficult. Most studies that attempt to measure recidivism equate ...

Title: Five Year Recidivism Follow-Up Of Sex Offender Releases Excerpt: Five Year Recidivism Follow-Up Of Sex Offender Releases George V. Voinovich, Governor Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction Reginald A. Wilkinson Thomas J ...

Title: Sex Offender Treatment Program (SOTP) Excerpt: Sex Offender Treatment Program (SOTP) Background Governing Laws ... recidivism rates between sex offenders who underwent treatment and those who had not.

Title: THE IMPACT OF PRISON-BASED TREATMENT ON SEX OFFENDER ... Excerpt: THE IMPACT OF PRISON-BASED TREATMENT ON SEX OFFENDER RECIDIVISM: EVIDENCE FROM MINNESOTA 1450 Energy Park Drive, Suite 200 St. Paul, Minnesota 55108-5219

Sex Offender Recidivism Prior to and Following the Implementation of SORN. Paper presented at the annual meetings of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual ...

The trends in sex offender recidivism over the study period. Exhibit 1 displays the three felony recidivism rates of all sex offenders released from prison in Washington

Title:"Sex Offender Risk Assessment: Recent Research and Current Controversies Symposium (June 13,2005)" Excerpt: "Sex Offender Risk Assessment: Recent Research and Current Controversies" Symposium Virginia Criminal Sentencing Commission June 13, 2005

Original Article12/22/2013This is by far the most extensive article ever written about registries. Worth reading. (PDF) Contrary to popular belief, offender registries are not a recent phenomenon. Offender registries are government-controlled sy...

Title: An Analysis of Risk Factors Contributing to the Recidivism of ... Excerpt: Most studies of sex offender recidivism are studies of only those persons released from prison or prison-based treatment programs (Barbaree, Seto,

The findings indicate that the current AWA classification scheme is likely to result in a system that is less effective in protecting the public than the classification systems currently implemented in the states studied. Policy makers should strongly consider substantial revisions of the AWA classification system to better incorporate evidence-based models of sex offender risk assessment and management.

Individuals classified as sexual predators are the pariahs of the community. Sex offenders are arguably the most despised members of our society and therefore warrant our harshest condemnation. Twenty individual states and the federal government have enacted laws confining individuals who have been adjudicated as "sexually violent predators" to civil commitment facilities post incarceration and/or conviction. Additionally, in many jurisdictions, offenders who are returned to the community are restricted and monitored under community notification, registration and residency limitations. Targeting, punishing and ostracizing these individuals has become an obsession in society, clearly evidenced in the constant push to enact even more restrictive legislation that breaches the boundaries of constitutional protections.

The Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) defines recidivism as a return to incarceration within three years of the offender's date of release from a state correctional institution. A recent study by the IDOC calculated the 2008 recidivism rate for offenders released from IDOC during 2005.