Lifetime Sexual Recidivism of Adult Justice-Involved Individuals: A 30-Year Prospective Longitudinal Study

There is an ongoing debate about the risk of long-term sexual recidivism for justice-involved perpetrators of sexual offense. There is a long-held belief that lifetime sexual recidivism varies between 40% and 60% but other more recent estimations are in the 20% to 30% range. Higher rates appear to stem from older, higher-risk samples, which might not be generalizable nowadays. The current study presents findings from a 30-year prospective longitudinal study of adults incarcerated for a sexual offense and the long-term prediction of risk assessment. A sample of 553 consecutively admitted individuals in a Canadian penitentiary were followed for an average of 18 years following their prison release. The study provided information for the cumulative sexual recidivism rate for a 5-year (0.09; 95% CI [0.07, 0.12]), a 10-year (0.15; [0.13, 0.19]), a 20-year period (0.19; [0.16, 0.23]) and a 25-year period (0.20; [0.17, 0.24]). The Static-99R scores were informative about the risk of sexual recidivism (Total score area under the receiver operating characteristics curve [AUC] = 0.662; [0.619, 0.702]; Risk level AUC = 0.639; [0.596, 0.680]), but the instrument was outperformed by other information, including custody and community re-entry experiences. Very similar findings were observed for the Static-2002R. The findings stress the need to investigate risk and protective factors distinctively for short, moderate and long-term recidivism.