AK- New Sex Offender Recidivism Statistics Out Of Alaska

Spring / Summer 2008 Alaska:

A recent study of sexual offenders released from incarceration in Alaska shows that for the three years after the offenders left prison in 2001, the rates of recidivism for sexual offenders were, by most measures, no higher than for offenders in general. The study, which was done by the Alaska Justice Statistical Analysis Center, a subdivision of the Justice Center, compared recidivism for sexual offenders released from prison in 2001 with a random sample of non-sex offenders also released in 2001. The analysis used the three measures most commonly used to determine recidivism: incidents of remand to custody, rearrest, and reconviction on any new offense. The results are similar to those found in an earlier study done by the Alaska Judicial Council. (See Alaska Felony Process: 1999, Alaska Judicial Council, 2004.)

The following analysis is based on data from the Departments of Corrections and Public Safety and the Alaska Court System. The Alaska Department of Corrections released 232 male sex offenders in 2001. This analysis focuses on offender recidivism over the three-year period following release. Recidivism is calculated for remand—reentry to prison as a result of probation/parole/technical violations, rearrest, or reconviction for any type of crime. Overall recidivism rates and frequencies for all sex offenders and for a randomly sampled cohort of other types of offenders also released in 2001 are presented. Also given are rates according to the types of sexual offense involved in the original conviction: sexual assault or sexual abuse of a minor.

Overall, during the three-year period, 70 percent of all offenders were remanded (68% of sex offenders and 72% of non-sex offenders), 61 percent were rearrested (54% of sex offenders and 68% of non-sex offenders), and 40 percent were convicted on some charge (39% of sex offenders and 35% of non-sex offenders).

For the categories of sex offense, 63 percent of those convicted of sexual abuse of a minor were remanded, 50 percent were rearrested and 36 percent were convicted of another offense—although not necessarily a sexual offense. For offenders convicted of sexual assault, the rates were 79 percent, 63 percent, and 45 percent respectively.

In the case of rearrest for a new sex offense, there was a slight but statistically insignificant difference between the sex offender group—3.4 percent—and the non-sex offender group—1.3 percent.

Note: Table-4 below shows specific rates for rearrest of BOTH 232 sex offenders (3.4%) and 232 non sex offenders (1.3%) released from prison in Alaska in 2001. It is important to note that non sex offenders were rearrested for sex offenses when released from prison. Recidivism in Table-4 is defined as committing a sex offense following release.

In 1994 the Department of Justice did a study of 9,691 male sex offenders released from prisons in the United States in 1994 (2/3rds of all sex offenders released nationwide that year). In that study the DOJ found that, 5.3% of sex offenders were rearrested and 1.3% of the non-sex offenders were rearrested for a sex offense following release from prison.

Most interesting here is, both studies show virtually the same rates for both sex offenders and non sex offenders, and the studies are 7 years apart. Further, sex offender registries were implmented after the 1994 study and there is no change in recidivism rates as the result of sex offender registration and public registries.

Here we are in 2008 and no state legislature nor Congress has done a single thing about the fact that, non sex offenders released from prison go on to commit sex offenses, even in the face of hard facts.

Even more egregious is, in the 1994 study, while the percentages look better for non sex offenders (1.3%) the reality is, because there are far more non sex offenders released (262,420 in 1994) that translates to 3,328 sex offenses; sex offenders committed 517 sex offenses. A 6 to 1 ratio, why are lawmakers so blind, is prevention really their focus? eAdvocate

Methodology

The Alaska Department of Corrections (DOC) provided the Alaska Justice Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) with a data set of all releases from DOC facilities in 2001. SAC personnel filtered the set for state statutes that identify a sexual offense and require registration on the state’s sex offender registry. Once the sex offenders were identified, an equivalent number of offenders from the remaining pool were randomly sampled to provide a comparison group. Current and past information on status, movements, court cases, etc. involving the offender was also obtained from DOC.

The Alaska Department of Public Safety (DPS) provided the SAC with criminal histories for the sampled offenders and the Alaska Court System provided record access to court records through the web-based interface, Court View (CV).

For this report, only first release cases were used—that is, if an offender was initially released some time prior to 2001 and returned for some reason, such as a probation violation, and then released again in 2001, that case was excluded. Also, some offenders were released more than once during 2001. The first release constituted the base measure; a subsequent release was an indication of a new arrest event.

In the rare instances of discrepancy, the date of the first event was used in the analysis. For instance, DOC and CV might have had the same date for an arrest/filing that did not appear in the criminal history. This situation generally indicated a remand to custody that did not get reported as a new court case and resulted in incarceration under the original court case—such as for parole, probation, and technical violations.

Demographics

Table 1 shows racial categories for the groups of offenders. Alaska Natives constituted 49 percent of the sex offender group and 46 percent of offenders overall. Whites were 32 percent of sex offenders and 39 percent of the overall offender pool. Table 1 also presents the breakdown for the two sex offense categories.


Table 2 shows a comparison of age and number of prior arrests and convictions for the groups of offenders. The average age of the sex offenders was significantly lower than that of the non-sex offenders. For the two sex offender categories, however, there was no significant difference in age.An analysis of prior convictions shows a significant difference between sex offenders and non-sex offenders for any prior conviction but not for sex offense convictions. The non-sex offenders had significantly more prior convictions than the sex offenders.


Rearrests for Any Crime

Table 3 shows recidivism rates for remands, rearrests, and reconvictions for the sex offenders and non-sex offenders. Non-sex offenders were more likely to be rearrested than sex offenders but for remands and convictions there was no significant difference between sex offenders and non-sex offenders.

Table 3 also shows the recidivism rates for the two sex offender categories. Those originally incarcerated for sexual abuse of a minor were less likely to be remanded than other sex offenders, less likely to be rearrested, and less likely to be reconvicted.

Rearrests for a Sex Crime

Table 4 shows the recidivism rates for the sex offenders and non-sex offenders for new sex crimes. While there is a slight difference in rearrests—3.4 percent for the sex offender group vs. 1.3 percent for the non-sex offender group—this difference is not statistically significant.

Table 4 also shows the equivalent analysis for the sex crime category grouping. Again, there is a slight but non-significant difference between the two groups.

..Original Research... by Alan McKelvie is the director of the Alaska Justice Statistical Analysis Center.