Recidivism of Sex Offendes Released from Prison in 1994

DefinitionsImprisonment offense The 9,691prisoners were men released fromState prisons in 1994 after servingsome portion of the sentence theyreceived for committing a sex crime.The sex crime they committed isreferred to throughout the report astheir “imprisonment offense.” Theirimprisonment offense should not beconfused with any new offense theymay have committed after release.Sex offender The 9,691 released menwere all violent sex offenders. They arecalled “violent” because the crimesthey were imprisoned for are widelydefined in State statutes as “violent”sex offenses. “Violent” means theoffender used or threatened force inthe commission of the crime or, whilenot actually using force, the offenderdid not have the victim’s “factual” or“legal” consent. Factual consent meansthat, for physical reasons, the victim didnot give consent, such as when theoffender had intercourse with asedated hospital patient or with awoman who had fallen unconsciousfrom excessive drug taking. “Legal”consent means that the victim willinglyparticipated but, in the eyes of the law,the victim was not old enough or notsufficiently mentally capable (perhapsdue to mental illness or mental retardation)to give his or her “legal” consent.State statutes give many differentnames to violent sex offenses: “forciblerape,” “statutory rape,” “object rape,”“sexual assault,” “sexual abuse,” “forciblesodomy,” “sexual misconduct,”“criminal sexual conduct,” “lasciviousconduct,” “carnal abuse,” “sexualcontact,” “unlawful sexual intercourse,”“sexual battery,” “unlawful sexual activity,”“lewd act with minor,” “indecentliberties with a child,” “carnal knowledgeof a child,” “incest with a minor,”and “child molesting.”“Violent” sex offenses are distinguishedfrom “nonviolent” sex offenses andfrom “commercialized sex offenses.”Nonviolent sex offenses include moralsand decency offenses (for example,indecent exposure and peeping tom),bestiality and other unnatural acts,adultery, incest between adults, andbigamy. Commercialized sexualoffenses include prostitution, pimping,and pornography. As used throughoutthis report, the terms “sex crimes” and“sex offenders” refer exclusively toviolent sex offenses.Each of the 9,691 sex offenders in thisreport is classified as either a rapist ora sexual assaulter. Classification wasbased on information about the imprisonmentoffense contained in prisonrecords supplied for each sex offenderreleased from prison in 1994. Alsobased on imprisonment offense information,an inmate could be categorizedas a child molester and/or a statutoryrapist. Classification to either of thesetwo categories is in addition to, notseparate from, classification as a rapistor sexual assaulter. For example, ofthe 3,115 sex offenders classified asrapists, 338 were child molesters. Or,to put it another way, the imprisonmentoffense for 338 of the 4,295 childmolesters identified in this report wasrape. Similarly, 3,957 of the 4,295 childmolesters were also sexual assaulters.SexualTotal Rapists assaultersChildmolesters 4,295 338 3,957Statutoryrapists443 21 422The report gives statistics for all sexoffenders and each of the four types —rapists, sexual assaulters, child molesters,and statutory rapists. (SeeMethodology on page 37 for details onhow sex offenders were separated intocategories.)Rapist “Violent sex crimes” areseparated into two categories: “rape”(short for “forcible rape”) and “othersexual assault.” As used throughoutthis report the term “rapist” refers to areleased sex offender whose imprisonmentoffense was defined by State lawas forcible intercourse (vaginal, anal, ororal) with a female or male. Rapeincludes “forcible sodomy” and“penetration with a foreign object.”Rape excludes statutory rape or anyother nonforcible sexual act with aminor or with someone unable to givelegal or factual consent. As usedthroughout this report, “rape” alwaysmeans “forcible rape.” “Statutory rape”is not a type of forcible rape.A total of 3,115 sex offenders areidentified in the report as releasedrapists — about a third (32%) of the9,691 released sex offenders.However, enough information to clearlydistinguish rapists from other sexualassaulters was not always available inthe prison records used to categorizesex offenders into different types.Consequently, the number of rapistsamong the 9,691 was almost certainlygreater than 3,115; how much greateris unknown.An obstacle to identifying rapists frompenal code information is that the label“rape” is not used in about half the 50States. However, released sex offenderswhose imprisonment offense wasrape could still be identified. To illustrate,in one State, the term criminalsexual conduct refers to all types of sexcrimes. The statutory language wasconsulted to determine if an offender’simprisonment offense involved “intercourse”that was “forcible,” in accordancewith the definition of rape usedin this report. If the offense was notfound to involve intercourse (orpenetration), then the inmate was notclassified as a rapist. The same wastrue of force; if the statutory languagedid not include a reference to force (orcoercion), the offense was not categorizedas rape.Sexual assaulter By definition in thereport, all sex offenders are either“rapists” or “sexual assaulters.” Sexoffenders whose imprisonment offensecould not be positively identified as“rape” were placed in the “sexualassault” category. To the extent thatrapists were reliably distinguished fromsexual assaulters, “sexual assaulters”identified in this report were releasedsex offenders whose imprisonmentRecidivism of Sex Offenders Released from Prison in 1994 3