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2011 23: 243 originally published online 11 November 2010Sex AbuseDanielle A. Harris, Raymond A. Knight, Stephen Smallbone and Susan Dennison

Civil CommitmentPostrelease Specialization and Versatility in Sexual Offenders Referred for

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SAX384276 SAX23210.1177/1079063210384276Harris et al.Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment

1San Jose State University, San Jose, CA2Brandeis University, Waltham, MA3Griffith University, Queensland, Australia

Corresponding Author:Danielle A. Harris, Justice Studies Department, MacQuarrie Hall, San Jose State University, One Washington Square, San Jose, CA 95192 Email: [email protected]

Postrelease Specialization and Versatility in Sexual Offenders Referred for Civil Commitment

Danielle A. Harris1, Raymond A. Knight2, Stephen Smallbone3, and Susan Dennison3

Abstract

Offense specialization and versatility has been explored previously in the prior criminal records of sexual offenders. The present study expanded these findings by examining offense specialization and versatility in the postrelease offending of a sample of sexual offenders referred for civil commitment and released. Criminal versatility (not limiting one’s offending to sexual crime) both before and after commitment was the most commonly observed offending pattern in the sample. Specialist offenders (those for whom sexual offenses constituted more than half of their total number of previous arrests) were more likely than versatile offenders to specialize in sexual offending on release, perhaps indicating that specialization is a stable offending tendency. When compared by referral status, recidivism records indicated that offenders who were committed for treatment were more likely than observed, noncommitted offenders to specialize in sexual offending on release. When compared by offender classification, child molesters and offenders with mixed aged victims were much more likely than rapists and incest offenders to specialize in sexual offending on release.

Keywords

sexual offender, sexual recidivism, criminal recidivism

Article



244 Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment 23(2)

Research on sexual offending tends to assume that men who commit sexual offenses can be distinguished from conventional or nonsexual criminals. This perspective holds that sexual offenders commit sexual offenses persistently and exclusively (or at least predominantly) throughout their criminal careers (Simon, 1997a, 1997b). The alternative viewpoint, more common to traditional criminology, regards those who commit sexual offenses (like those who commit any other offense) as versatile crimi-nals who tend to engage in many different types of crime indiscriminately (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).

These dimensions have been explored recently in the officially recorded criminal histories of various samples of incarcerated sexual offenders (Harris, Smallbone, Dennison, Knight, 2009; Lussier, 2005; Lussier, LeBlanc, & Proulx, 2005; Miethe, Olson, Mitchell, 2006; Smallbone & Wortley, 2004). What remains to be seen, how-ever, is whether those patterns are maintained after release. This study addressed the postrelease offending tendencies (i.e., specialization or versatility) of men convicted of a sexual offense and referred for civil commitment. We define specialization as the tendency to repeat the same crime or the same type of crime on subsequent occasions (Blumstein, Cohen, Roth, & Visher, 1986). Alternatively, versatility reflects a tendency to commit a broad array of offenses without concentrating on a specific behavior (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).

Crime-specific policies have been aimed at drug-related offenders, white-collar criminals, and shoplifters (Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990), but the clearest examples are seen in the case of extrafamilial child molesters. If offenders do specialize in the types of crime they commit, then it makes sense for public policy to be tailored toward spe-cific individuals who have been determined likely to participate in a particular crime (Mazerolle, Brame, Paternoster, Piquero, & Dean, 2000; Williams & Arnold, 2002). In this way, “crime specific incarceration policies—such as those directed at repeat vio-lent offenders—would have large impacts on the incidence of specific crime types” (Lattimore, Visher, & Linster, 1994, p. 292). If knowledge of prior offenses could actu-ally predict subsequent criminal events, then the identification of specialized offenders would certainly be useful in criminal justice decision making (Farrington, Snyder, & Finnegan, 1988; Lattimore et al., 1994; Stander, Farrington, Hill, & Altham, 1989).

If, on the other hand, offenders are predominantly versatile, crime-specific policies have less impact (Lattimore et al., 1994). In this scenario, crime-control programs might be seen to have a broader deterrent effect where crime is reduced more generally (Mazerolle et al., 2000). If versatility is the standard offending tendency, a reevalua-tion of many legislative initiatives and policies already in place might be necessary. With this in mind, the objective of the present study was to explore the extent of spe-cialization and versatility in sexual offending in recidivism records for up to 10 years after release.

SpecializationA growing body of research indicates that many sexual offenders do not restrict their criminal activities to sexual offenses (Brennan, Mednick, & John, 1989; Lussier,



Harris et al. 245

2005; Miethe et al., 2006; Simon, 2000; Smallbone & Wortley, 2004; Soothill, Francis, Sanderson, & Ackerley, 2000; Weinrott & Saylor, 1991; Williams & Arnold, 2002). Existing studies suggest that adult sexual offenders are about twice as likely to be convicted for nonsexual offenses as they are for sexual offenses, both before and after being convicted of a sexual offense (Hanson & Bussière, 1998; Smallbone & Wortley, 2004).

When compared by offender classification, extrafamilial child molesters are con-sistently found to be more likely (and rapists less likely) to specialize in sexual offenses (Lussier et al., 2005; Miethe et al., 2006; Weinrott & Saylor, 1991). Existing studies also suggest that men who are labeled as incest offenders tend to have both intra- and extrafamilial victims (Cole, 1992; Smallbone, Wheaton, & Hourigan, 2003; Weinrott & Saylor, 1991). As clinical and empirical studies have shown that there is evidence of crime switching within sexual-offense categories, the possibility of a “mixed offenders” label should be considered. Evidently, some men who are labeled as rapists admit to having abused children, and self-report data from identified incest offenders or extrafamilial child molesters also indicate that they have adult victims (Abel et al., 1987). Despite their existence, these offenders are seldom included as a separate group in other studies. The present research makes an important contribution by including an identifiable group of men with both adult and child victims (hereafter: “mixed offenders”).

RecidivismRecidivism is one of the most important and most frequently studied aspects of sexual offending. The presumed likelihood of postrelease offending and the apparent strength with which it can be predicted has dominated the field, and the assumption that incar-cerated sexual offenders are destined to reoffend (sexually) on release is strong. Indeed, if this suspected specialized repetition was confirmed empirically, then recidi-vism data would be of extreme (and warranted) public policy significance (Soothill & Gibbens, 1978). As Nagayama Hall and Proctor (1987) explained, despite a scarcity of convincing empirical support, the crime-specialization hypothesis is widely accepted and has become an integral part of sexual offender assessment protocols (see also Cole, 2000; Lieb, Quinsey, & Berliner, 1998). This assumption of specialization has encour-aged the development of several risk-assessment tools that have the expressed intention of predicting sexual recidivism. It has also had a similarly powerful impact beyond the realm of research. The fear of sexual recidivism has inspired community panic, fuelled specific and sometimes Draconian public policy, and guided the passage of numerous pieces of memorial legislation (named for particular victims of certain horrific sexual crimes; Lieb et al., 1998).1

Considerable emphasis is placed on the assumed patterns of recidivism for sexual offenders. Although much research has focused on recidivism, the extent of special-ization in postrelease offending remains largely uncharted territory. In line with the specific purposes of this study, this review will include a discussion of what is known about specialization in postrelease offending for sexual offenders.




Sample bias is a key element to consider when reviewing the existing research. Soothill and Gibbens (1978) noted that psychiatric samples have often been small and biased toward the direction of specialization because of the increased level of risk of study participants. In contrast, criminological samples have tended to study much larger and more representative samples. Consequently they have found substantially lower rates of specialization (Soothill & Gibbens, 1978). Different rates of specializa-tion may both be valid, depending on the sample studied. Among samples of serious, fixated, and recidivating sexual offenders, specialized offenders may be more com-mon, but generally speaking, the rates of both sexual specialization and reconviction may be lower among the general population of offenders.

One of the earliest studies of sexual offender recidivism is also one of the most relevant for the present focus on offense specialization. Wary of the specific attention being paid to sexual offenders, Soothill and Gibbens (1978) examined a sample of child molesters (all with contact offenses against victims under the age of 13). Their results indicated considerable risk of recidivism 5 years after release and reinforced the need for longer follow-up periods than had previously been employed (Soothill & Gibbens, 1978).

In general, the research on sexual offender recidivism has found that sexually rele-vant variables have been among the strongest predictors of sexual recidivism on release (Hanson, 2002; Hanson & Bussière, 1998; Kenny, Keogh, & Seidler, 2001). Criminal lifestyle variables and number of nonsexual prior offenses have also been found to be predictive of sexual recidivism (Hanson & Bussière, 1998; Kenny et al., 2001). As it has been found that sexual offenders are actually more likely to reoffend with a non-sexual offense (Smallbone & Wortley, 2004), the explicit emphasis on sexual variables may be less relevant when attempting to predict generic recidivism.

The effect of the assumption of specialization on public policy was investigated in a 21-year follow-up study of 7,442 men convicted of sexual offenses in England and Wales in 1973 (Francis & Soothill, 2000). One of the objectives of this study was to explore escalation by determining how many of the individuals went on to commit murder. Based on type of first conviction and subsequent arrests, they concluded that such innovations as increased surveillance, home visits, and intensive correctional supervision actually had very little impact in preventing homicide (Francis & Soothill, 2000). Sexual offenders were indeed at a higher risk of committing homicide (by a factor of seven when compared with the general population). The convicted child molesters (who would have been subject to the provisions of Megan’s Law, for exam-ple) who did commit murder were actually more likely to kill adult women (Francis & Soothill, 2000). Thus, even if they had been subject to the law, it would not necessarily have been useful in preventing the murder of either adults or children.

In a study of 342 male sexual offenders, Nagayama Hall and Proctor (1987) identi-fied 233 (68.1%) individuals with exclusively sexual criminal histories. They observed a clear level of specialization in postrelease offending for both rapists and child molest-ers. Consistent with much existing research, offenders with child victims were much more likely to recidivate sexually than those with adult victims. Although rapists did



Harris et al. 247

recidivate with rape, they also committed nonsexual offenses on release. In line with previous studies, the authors concluded that rape was perhaps “symptomatic of a more generalised pattern of antisocial behavior” (Nagayama Hall & Proctor, 1987, p. 112).

Unfortunately Nagayama Hall and Proctor (1987) did not report differences in postrelease specialization by comparing the sample on the basis of the extent of their specialization prior to incarceration. This is an identifiable gap in the existing body of knowledge on recidivism and offending patterns. The relationship between specializa-tion in previous offending and the likelihood of specializing in postrelease offending is addressed directly in the analysis below.

HypothesesThe main objective of the present study was to determine the extent to which recidi-vist sexual offenders specialized in sexual offending or were criminally versatile on release. The following hypotheses extend from our previous conclusions that child molesters were more likely than rapists to specialize in sexual offending, but that there were no differences between groups when they were compared by referral status or length of treatment (commitment vs. observation; Harris et al., 2009). Furthermore, we predict that specialization is a stable offending tendency, and that those who were identified as specialized or versatile before referral would maintain those patterns in their postrelease offending. The sample is first compared by referral status, then offender classification, and finally, prior specialization. It was hypothe-sized that

1. Committed offenders and observed offenders would not differ in the extent to which they specialized in sexual offending in their postrelease offending.

2. Child molesters would be more likely than rapists to specialize in sexual offending in their postrelease offending.

3. Specialist offenders would be more likely than versatile offenders to special-ize in sexual offending in their postrelease offending.

MethodParticipants

The present sample of participants was derived from an original sample of 568 men convicted of a sexual offense and evaluated at the Massachusetts Treatment Center for Sexually Dangerous Persons (MTC) in Bridgewater between 1959 and 1984. The MTC was established in 1959 under special legislation (General Law of Massachusetts, 1965, para. 1-11) for the purpose of assessing and treating individuals convicted of repetitive and/or aggressive sexual offenses (Lieb et al., 1998). The legislation pro-vided for a civil, day-to-life commitment by the court (Jenkins, 1998) for anyone determined to be a sexual psychopath (Mihm, 1954). The commitment process




preceded the generation of actuarial in the 1990s and thus depended exclusively on expert witnesses. The criteria changed as a function of who the evaluator was. For a complete description of the sample and the commitment procedures see Knight and Thornton (2007).

The mean age of the entire sample at time of discharge either from MTC or from prison to the streets was 36.55 (SD = 11.94, range 17.44-78.99 years). They committed their first serious sexual offense at an average age of 25.04 (SD = 8.77, range 10-60 years). They committed their index offense, which brought them to MTC, at 30.95 (SD = 10.74, range 14.29-64.58 years). Those who were committed to MTC were incarcerated there an average of 6 years. Those evaluated and not committed (observed cases) were returned to prison to complete their sentences. Although the committed sample consistently exceeded the observed sample on commonly used actuarials (Knight & Thornton, 2007), commitment status per se was not significantly related to recidi-vism. The majority of the committed sample was treated within a psychoanalytic framework, an intervention strategy that has subsequently been shown to be subopti-mal with such offenders (e.g., Hanson et al., 2002; Lösel & Schmucker, 2005). Owing to this suboptimal treatment and the higher initial risk of the committed sample, it is not appropriate to draw conclusions about the efficacy of treatment from this study.

Overall, approximately half of the sample recidivated (298/568, 52.5%), and a quar-ter (143/568, 25.2%) were charged with at least one subsequent sexual offense. Of the 298 participants who reoffended within a period of up to 10 years after release, 55 were only charged for a single offense. As our focus is specifically on postrelease specializa-tion, and it is meaningless to explore specialization in occasional or one-offense offend-ers, the following analysis includes only those 243 cases with at least two follow-up charges.

MeasuresRecidivism. The follow-up data for the present analyses contained a wealth of infor-

mation about each individual’s postrelease offenses. As there are drawbacks to relying on a single source of official statistics for recidivism, this study incorporated multiple sources of data on criminal events (committed in the continental United States). A comprehensive list of agencies was consulted. These included the Massachusetts Board of Probation, the Massachusetts Parole Board, the MTC Authorized Absence Program, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The information contained within these recording sources is described here.

The Massachusetts Board of Probation and the Massachusetts Parole Board record all charges and their consequent dispositions. The reliability of these sources for both misdemeanor and felony charges for offenses committed within the state of Massachusetts has been demonstrated previously (Knight & Thornton, 2007).

The MTC Authorized Absence Program includes information on all of the partici-pants from the committed sample. In some circumstances, when an inmate was placed on a gradual release program, his file was kept open by the MTC. These files contained monthly status reports reviewing the participant’s progress as well as notes submitted



Harris et al. 249

by case managers concerning the individual’s activities and community adjustment. Length of time in custody was not included in the study. Although the files contained the disposition for each charge (including sentence length), the actual time served was not provided. Finally, the FBI maintains an ongoing record of all individuals convicted of felonies throughout the country. These records included charges and dispositions.

Specialization. The present study used the specialization threshold (ST), which is the simplest way to determine offence specialization. It applies a cutoff point to the percent-age of offenders’ total prior charges or sentencing occasions that are for a particular offense type. Thus, specialist offenders are so-called because an arbitrary proportion of their charges, arrests, or sentencing occasions are for a particular type of crime. Various thresholds have been used in prior research (Miethe et al., 2006; Wikstrom, 1987), but we followed the convention of most studies, declaring specialization if more than 50% of a person’s prior offenses were for a particular type of crime (Cohen, 1986; Harris, 2008; Harris et al., 2009). In this case, the focus was limited to the category of sexual offending only. This category includes all contact and noncon-tact sexual offenses against adults and children.

Many specialization studies use arrests, convictions, or sentencing occasions as the primary unit of analysis. Each occasion might include multiple counts or charges, so the most common convention is to record only the most serious charge at each event (Brennan et al., 1989; Farrington et al., 1988; Lattimore et al., 1994). Identifying correctly the nature of a single incident has particular relevance for sexual offenders. The seriousness of most sexual offenses (compared with almost all other offenses) means that using the most serious offense would likely inflate the specialization detected.

It is important to acknowledge that specialization exists on a continuum, so it is also possible to describe the extent to which participants have specialized by exploring the overall distribution of the percentage of sexual offenses in one’s criminal history.2 Although we examined the sample in this way and report briefly here on the distribu-tions of each group, in subsequent analyses, we ultimately followed the convention of previous studies by using the threshold approach. Seen on a continuum, someone who commits five sexual offenses, five property offenses, and five violent offenses, for example, will have a specialization “score” of 33.3% (5/15; and thus fail to meet the 50% ST criterion for sexual offenses). On average, sexual offenses accounted for one in four offenses (M = 25.53%; SD = 23.0) for rapists but one in two crimes (M = 51.50%; SD = 31.5) for the child molesters in the sample. The distributions for incest offenders (M = 44.7%; SD = 27.0) and mixed offenders (M = 46.3%; SD = 29.0) were more simi-lar to the child molesters than to the rapists. A one-way analysis of variance confirmed that there was a significant difference among the groups, F (3) = 22.120, p < .001. Bonferroni post hoc tests indicated that rapists had lower average specialization scores than child molesters (p < .001), incest offenders, (p = .015), and mixed offenders (p < .001). There were no other differences between groups.

Our use of individual charges (arrest data) as the units of analysis constituted an important contribution to this body of knowledge. One consequence of this decision was that the versatility detected in the results will be inflated because every charge is




included. Given that the sample is already biased in the direction of specialization (because of their referral for civil commitment under sexually dangerous person legis-lation) and given that the most serious offense masks so many crucial details, this approach was considered innovative and worthwhile. Although we acknowledge that this is not completely representative of the actual extent of their behaviors (i.e., we did not use self-report data and were therefore unable to account for unreported offend-ing), we believe that this does move a step beyond previous specialization studies by capturing a truer reflection of offending.

Offender classification. The MTC Classification Schemes for rapists (MTC:R3; Knight & Prentky, 1990) and child molesters (MTC:CM3; Knight, 1992; Knight, Carter, & Prentky, 1989) were used to classify the sample into offender types. This yielded four groups as follows: 113 rapists (whose sexual offense victims were exclu-sively adults); 111 child molesters (who, at the time of the offense, were at least 5 years older than their sexual offense victims, who were exclusively children [<16 years old]); 12 incest-only offenders (whose child victims were exclusively those for whom he was a caregiver); and 50 offenders with mixed aged victims (with at least one child victim [under 12] as well as at least one adult victim [over the age of 16]). This dis-tinction ensured the individuals in this group were truly mixed with both a certain child victim and a certain adult victim. This excluded “Romeo and Juliet” cases (such as a 15-year-old offender with a 14-year-old victim) from the sample. A small group of participants whose sexual offenses were exclusively noncontact in nature were excluded from the analyses.

ProcedureA list of all possible criminal charges was generated as part of the original National Institute of Justice (NIJ) study (Knight & Thornton, 2007). This was achieved by using the handbooks from the Massachusetts Board of Probation and the FBI. Individual coders subsequently added to the list when they encountered charges that were not in the original directories. This process generated a list of 172 possible criminal charges. These crime types were ultimately collapsed by the first author into the following four crime categories: sexual, nonsexual violence, property, and miscellaneous. These cat-egories were consistent with previous studies (Harris, 2008; Harris et al., 2009).

The first author reviewed the archival clinical files of every participant and extracted the officially recorded criminal histories of each one. The follow-up data contained within each file were also recorded by the first author and merged with an existing “criminal history” database (Harris et al., 2009). The complete database contained the date, type of offense, and resulting disposition of every officially recorded charge in each participant’s criminal history and postrelease offending records (up to 10 years after release). Recidivism was ultimately measured in the following three ways: the total number of charges for any offense, the total number of charges for a sexual offense, and the total number of charges for a nonsexual violent offense. Operationalizing recidivism in this way is consistent with other studies of postrelease sexual offending (Hanson & Bussière, 1998; Smallbone & Wortley, 2004).



Harris et al. 251

Analytical StrategiesThe ST was calculated to examine specialization in sexual offences. Consistent with previous studies, a 50% cutoff was employed to identify specialist offenders (those for whom more than 50% of their total number of officially recorded charges were for a sexual offense). The number of participants who exceeded the 50% ST in sexual offending was determined. Separate measures were calculated for specialization in criminal history and for specialization in postrelease offending. Owing to the limita-tions of using official statistics, these measures included only those offenses known to the agencies consulted in the study.

Next, the sample was divided by referral status to compare committed cases and observed cases. Second, the sample was divided by offender classification into rapists, child molesters, incest-only offenders, and mixed offenders (based on the MTC Classification Scheme described above). Finally, the sample was divided by their extent of specialization in sexual offending in their prior criminal histories, and spe-cialist and versatile offenders were compared.

ResultsThe first part of this study established that 298 of the 568 offenders in the original sample had subsequently reoffended. A Pearson’s chi-square test indicated that when compared by referral status, committed offenders were statistically significantly more likely than observed offenders to reoffend at all (χ2 (1) = 8.02, p = .018, Cramer’s V = .14) and to reoffend sexually (χ2 (1) = 18.99, p < .001, Cramer’s V = .21). These results are presented in Table 1, where the sample is arranged by referral status (committed/observed), offender classification (rapists, child molesters, incest offenders, and mixed offenders), and prior specialization (specialist/versatile).

Table 1. Recidivism Rates by Referral Status, Offender Classification, and Prior Specialization

Any recidivism Sexual recidivism Violent recidivism

% (n) % (n) % (n)

Referral status Committed (n = 247) 56.5 (139) 33.2 (82) 25.2 (62) Observed (n = 189) 43.6 (82) 15.3 (29) 20.2 (38)Offender classification Rapists (n = 182) 62.1 (113) 21.4 (39) 33.5 (61) Child molesters (n = 218) 50.9 (111) 28.4 (62) 19.7 (43) Incest only (n = 34) 35.3 (12) 2.9 (1) 17.6 (6) Mixed (n = 73) 68.5 (50) 43.8 (32) 31.5 (23)Prior specialization Versatile history (n = 371) 59.6 (221) 23.7 (88) 31.8 (118) Specialist history (n = 197) 43.1 (85) 26.0 (51) 13.7 (27)




Rapists were significantly more likely than child molesters to reoffend at all (χ2 (1) = 5.02, p = .026, Cramer’s V = .11) and to reoffend with a violent offense (χ2 (1) = 9.81, p = .002, Cramer’s V = .16). There was no difference between rapists and child molesters with respect to sexual recidivism (χ2 (1) = 2.58, p < .067, Cramer’s V = .08). Approximately one third of the incest-only offenders were charged with an offense after their release from MTC. Contrary to many existing assumptions that they tend to be more socially competent and less violent, about half of the incest offenders who reoffended were charged with at least one violent offense. Mixed offend-ers were the most likely offender classification to offend at all and to reoffend sexu-ally. Rapists were the most likely offender type to commit a violent offense on release.

When compared by specialization, versatile offenders were significantly more likely than specialist offenders to reoffend at all (χ2 (1) = 16.03, p = .001, Cramer’s V = .17). They were also more likely to be charged with a nonsexual violent offense (χ2 (1) = 26.27, p < .001, Cramer’s V = .22). It is noteworthy that this trend did not follow for sexual recidivism. Specialist offenders were not significantly more likely than their versatile counterparts to be charged on release with a sexual offense. Offenders with versatile criminal histories (n = 216) were charged an average of 6.6 times after release. A t test confirmed that this was significantly more than the 4.8 charges accrued by a specialist offender (n = 81), t (295) = 2.33, p = .02. There were no differences among groups when compared by offender classification or by referral status. Having a versatile criminal history, regardless of treatment length, offender classification, or victim age, was correlated with a higher number of follow-up charges.

The following analysis concerned the extent of specialization in the follow-up offending records of the sample and tested the three hypotheses proposed earlier. Again, these analyses included only those 243 cases with at least two follow-up charges and excluded those 55 offenders with a single follow-up offense. Comparisons were made first by referral status, then by offender classification, and finally by level of offense specialization (prior to referral).

Hypothesis 1 proposed that the period of commitment at MTC may have been effective in curbing sexual offending specifically and thus predicted that committed and observed offenders would not differ in the extent to which their postrelease offend-ing was specialized in sexual offenses. The participants whose recidivist offending satisfied the 50% ST were arranged by referral status, and a Pearson’s chi-square test was conducted. These results are shown in Table 2. Versatile offending (both before referral and after release) was clearly the predominant offending pattern for this sample. Committed offenders (47/139, 33.8%) were almost three times more likely

Table 2. Postrelease Specialization in Sexual Offending by Referral Status

Observed (n = 82)

Committed (n = 139) χ2 (1) p Cramer’s V

Specialist postrelease offending 13.4 (11) 33.8 (47) 11.1 .001 .22

Note: N = 221.



Harris et al. 253

than observed offenders (11/82, 13.4%) to specialize in sexual offenses in their postre-lease offending. Hypothesis 1 was therefore not supported because this difference was significant (χ2 (1) = 11.1, p = .001, Cramer’s V = .22).

Hypothesis 2 addressed specialization in postrelease offending by offender classifica-tion and predicted that child molesters would be more likely than rapists to meet the follow-up 50% ST in sexual offending. Here, incest-only offenders (n = 9) and mixed offenders (n = 38) were included for exploration with no specific expectation concerning their offending patterns. These groups were ultimately excluded from this analysis because their small sample sizes would have violated the chi-square test assumption that requires each cell to contain at least five observations (Field, 2005). Results provided strong support for this hypothesis, with child molesters more than three times as likely as rapists to specialize in their recidivism (χ2 (1) = 15.42, p < .001, Cramer’s V = .29). Interestingly, a third of mixed offenders also satisfied the 50% ST postrelease. These results are presented in Table 3.

To test Hypothesis 3, offenders were arranged by the extent to which they special-ized in sexual offenses before referral to the MTC. This analysis addressed the ques-tion of whether participants who reoffended maintained their previously established offending tendencies and predicted that those with specialist criminal histories would be more likely than those with versatile criminal histories to specialize after release. A Pearson’s chi-square test provided strong support for this hypothesis (χ2 (1) = 17.84, p < .001, Cramer’s V = .27). Those offenders who specialized in sexual offending prior to their referral to the MTC were more than twice as likely as versatile offenders to specialize on release. These results are shown in Table 4.

Versatile postrelease offending was especially likely among those offenders deter-mined previously to have versatile criminal histories. Of the 178 offenders with versa-tile criminal records before referral, almost 85% continued on a versatile offending

Table 3. Postrelease Specialization in Sexual Offending by Offender Classification

Rapists (n = 96)

Child molesters (n = 90)

Incest (n = 9)

Mixed (n = 38)

% (n) % (n) % (n) % (n) χ2 (1) p Cramer’s V

Specialist postrelease offending

9.4 (9) 32.2 (29) 0.0 (0) 34.2 (13) 15.42 .001 .29

Note: N = 233.

Table 4. Postrelease Specialization in Sexual Offending by Prior Specialization

Versatile history (n = 178)

Specialist history (n = 64) χ2 (1) p Cramer’s V

Specialist postrelease offending 15.2 (27) 40.6 (26) 17.84 .000 .27

Note: N = 242.




trajectory with only 15% switching to sexual offense specialization after release. Specialist career criminals, who met the 50% ST for both prereferral and postrelease sexual offending, were a small group (n = 26), accounting for only one tenth of the full sample of participants who reoffended with two or more charges.

Specialization prior to referral to the MTC was not necessarily indicative of spe-cialization in postrelease offending. Of the 64 cases that met the 50% ST for sexual offending in their criminal history, most (38/64; 59.4%) did not maintain a pattern of specialization on release. Looking at this the other way around, of the 53 participants who specialized on release, approximately half had specialized criminal histories (n = 27) and half did not (n = 26). This suggests that the predictive power of a specialist criminal history is limited.

DiscussionThis study sought to expand on the incomplete picture that exists of offense special-ization and versatility across the criminal career. Previous studies have described the tendency to specialize as a static variable, often collecting this information at a single point in time, to reflect a certain time period. This is the first time where the same participants have been followed after release, allowing elements of specializa-tion and versatility to be detailed both prior to referral and after release. The present results suggest that the offending tendencies that were established in the criminal histories of the sample were generally replicated when each participant’s postrelease offending was examined. Just over half of the sample reoffended with approximately a quarter reoffending sexually. The sample was compared by referral status, by offender classification, and by level of specialization. Prior to referral, versatility in offending was the key finding across groups, and versatile offenders were more pro-lific than specialist offenders in their recidivist offending. The results are summarized and discussed below.

Committed offenders were more likely than observed offenders to reoffend at all and to reoffend sexually. They were also almost three times as likely as observed offenders to specialize in their postrelease offending. This might suggest that the period of commitment was patently unsuccessful in reducing one’s tendency to recidi-vate. A more reasonable interpretation, however, as indicated earlier, is that offenders were given suboptimal treatment, and those selected for commitment were at higher risk for offending, as indicated by their significantly higher scores on actuarials (Knight & Thornton, 2007).

Rapists were more likely than child molesters to reoffend at all and to reoffend violently, but there was no difference between the groups on sexual recidivism. Child molesters were more likely than rapists to specialize in sexual offenses after release. Although their sample size was small, a large proportion of mixed offenders also spe-cialized in sexual offenses on release. Having both adult and child victims might pre-clude someone from being seen as fixated or especially selective in their choice of victim, but it does seem that committing sexual offenses indiscriminately correlates with more sexual and more violent offending. These results suggest that in the interest



Harris et al. 255

of public safety, more attention should be paid to the offending behaviors of men who abuse both adults and children.

Versatile offenders were more likely than specialist offenders to reoffend at all and to reoffend violently, but the groups did not differ in their likelihood of sexual recidi-vism. Notably, versatile offenders were also much more prolific than specialist offend-ers, accruing significantly more charges than their counterparts. This is certainly consistent with the argument that versatile offenders are simply more frequent offend-ers not because of any differential opportunity structures, but simply because of their more active participation in crimes. What remains to be seen, however, is whether frequency can be disambiguated from versatility. This is an important question for future avenues of criminal career research.

Finally, results indicated that specialist offenders were more likely than versatile offenders to specialize in their postrelease offending. Versatility, however, remained the far more likely offending tendency, and of those who specialized in sexual offend-ing after release, approximately half had specialized before referral and half had not.

The results of this study are limited by the quality of recidivism records. Unreported offenses committed by the participants in the sample were not reflected in the present analyses. The authors have tried to combat this weakness by employing a broad selec-tion of recidivism records and by using arrest data rather than reconviction or reincar-ceration data to approximate a truer reflection of their actual behaviors.

Second, the length of time one is incarcerated should be considered. The original researchers of the NIJ study intended to account for time spent in prison, but this proved a difficult task. Although sentence lengths and sentencing dates were provided in the files, the actual time served was not recorded by Massachusetts agencies until about two decades after these data were collected. Evidently, the length of time that partici-pants spend in custody is a relevant concern for criminal career research: It clearly impacts someone’s criminal opportunities and will thus effect their potential participa-tion in and frequency of offending. Importantly, however, Weisburd and Waring (1996) found that time in prison had no bearing on one’s tendency to specialize and believe it to be an irrelevant consideration for a study such as this one, where the focus is on specialization and versatility, and not participation, frequency, or desistance.

Finally, the ST has its limitations. Apart from its simplicity, one of the main criti-cisms of the approach is its inability to detect crime switching or change over time. The ST is a static measurement, so it does not account for the temporal structure of the data (Bursik, 1980). Therefore, it is impossible to determine, for example, if an indi-vidual committed a range of crimes indiscriminately across their life course or engaged in a broad range of crimes in adolescence and eventually came to specialize in a par-ticular offense later in life (Sullivan, McGloin, Pratt, & Piquero, 2006). As Bursik (1980) suggested, “the analysis of specialization can be greatly improved if the stan-dard approaches, such as the 50% cutoff definition, are combined with more dynamic approaches” (p. 862). The first author is currently working on a developmental approach that would attend to this limitation. In the meantime, it should be acknowl-edged that dividing a criminal career into two halves (before and after referral to the MTC) is an attempt at capturing this progression.




This study reviewed the postrelease offending records of a sample of sexual offenders whose criminal histories were examined in a previous study (Harris et al., 2009). The tendency to be criminally versatile was the much more likely offending pattern across the sample. The global finding of this study supports existing criminological perspec-tives on versatility and challenges the assumptions of the sexual offending literature about specialization. Evidently, specialized sexual offenders do exist, but they are an identifiable minority. Many current legislative initiatives aimed at sexual offenders appear to have been fueled by (until recently) untested assumptions that sexual offend-ing is a distinct and specialized behavior. This has led to the emergence of crime control policies that exclusively target men convicted of sexual offenses (particularly against children). These policies include community registration and notification, resi-dency restrictions, mandatory specialized treatment, and second generation civil com-mitment laws. Along with other recent studies (Lussier et al., 2005; Miethe et al., 2006; Simon, 2000; Smallbone & Wortley, 2004; Soothill et al., 2000), the present conclusion that sexual offenders, like other offenders, tend to be versatile in their criminal behavior call such approaches into question. Broader prevention efforts clearly need to do much more than rely on the selective policing and incapacitation of men identified as sexual offenders.

Authors’ Note

This work was presented at the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers 27th Annual Research and Treatment Conference in Atlanta, 2008.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research and/or authorship of this article.

Notes

1. See also the Jacob Wetterling Act (1994), Megan’s Law (1994), Jessica’s Law (2005), and the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (2006).

2. The authors wish to thank an anonymous reviewer for this suggestion.

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