Murder and Serious Sexual Assault - Lancaster EPrints - Lancaster ...

MURDERERS AND SERIOUS SEXUAL OFFENDERS WITH A CRIMINAL HISTORY
criminal activity. The scale of the differences needs to be understood. So, for
example, while the most prevalent offence (‘other theft’) leads to a slightly reduced
risk of serious sexual offending, it still needs to be remembered that almost one-half
(46.8%) of the SSA offenders still had this offence in their prior criminal history
(Table 2). Taken together, these findings reinforce the heterogeneity of the criminal
backgrounds of those convicted of serious sexual offences and the range of
‘offending pathways’ that exist.
This represents the first stages in exploring the value of this kind of approach. What
has emerged is that some serious offenders – whether they murder or commit SSA
against adult females – are unlike the general run of offenders. They are more likely
to have convictions for violent crime in their criminal histories. Furthermore, in the
case of murder, previous convictions for some of the violent offences do not merely
increase the risk of future convictions for violence in general. When a control sample
of violent offenders is used, the statistical significance of, for example, previous
robbery, arson and wounding (endangering life), indicates that the risk of murder
specifically is increased by having previously been convicted of these offences. This
analysis does not, however, address how various previous offences might work in
combination with each other. This is addressed in detail in Appendix C.
The next chapter looks at risk factors and offender-victim relationships in murder.
As noted with respect to serious sexual assault, murder is a term which can cover a
very wide range of activity. Analysing such offenders as a homogenous group may
well smooth out some of the more unusual characteristics peculiar to a particular
type of murder; Chapter 4 explores this issue.
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