Essay Example about Recidivism Rate of Child Sexual Assault Offenders

Some criminals after facing the criminal charges and serving jail term periods are still prone to the same criminal acts, some of them will still be arrested for committing similar crimes, and child sexual assault offenders are not an exception either (Caldwell, 2007, p. 109). The tendency of people or criminals committing similar crimes after facing punishment is what is termed as recidivism (Hanson, & Morton-Bourgon, 2009, p. 1).

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The United States of America

In the United States of America, recidivism is part of the society, but when it comes to the issues of child sexual assault offenders, it is a minimal thing since most of them do not repeat a similar crime (Gelb, & Council, 2007, n. p). Even though many people tend to think that recidivism rate is very high among the child sexual assault offenders, this is not the case on the ground especially within the United States of America as recidivism rate is very low in comparison to other criminal offenses (Bonnar-Kidd, 2010, p. 417). Conspicuous illustration evidence is the 2002case study of the 9691 child sex offenders from 16 different states within the United States of America released from various prisons in the year 1994.

Three years upon their release, their re-arrest percentage stood at 5.3, while the reconviction was even lower at 3.1% (Bonnar-Kidd, 2010, p. 419). This result was and is still a shock to many as the expectation was 90 +1% re-arrest and conviction of the released individuals from the prison within duration less than a year (Christopher, Lutz-Zois, & Reinhardt, 2007, p. 873). The study went beyond the sexual assault offenders to another type of criminals, and the result reveals that criminals or offenders in other sectors other than rape have a high tendency of committing similar crimes on release from the prison. Sixty-eight and forty-seven are the rearrest and reconviction results of non-sexual criminals respectively from the 2002 case study (Caldwell, 2007, p. 112).

According to the justice department of the United States of America, New York State has the lowest rate of recidivism with only murder surpassing it (Bonnar-Kidd, 2010, p. 415). This sample is a perfect presentation of what is happening in the entire United States of America.

Other Countries

However, it is important to note that recidivism rate is never constant across the board as it depends on the kind of the punishment that the offenders are subjected to as well as the traits of the places that these individuals originate. The recidivism rate is high in the developing countries across almost every crime (Hanson, & Morton-Bourgon, 2009, p. 1). A suitable explanation for this is seen as the abject poverty that individuals undergo in these countries, which forces them to look for a solution elsewhere with an aim to satisfy their basic, secondary, as well as tertiary needs. Other persons may explain it in regarding “unseen” forces like ghosts and similar substances (Gelb, & Council, 2007).

This is unclear if one chooses to examine the developed countries like the Great Britain. Which are almost in the same category as the United States of America; because the recidivism rate is as low as the one in the United States because these nations under the same category as far as various aspects are concerned (Caldwell, 2007, p. 111).

Policies

United States of America has some different and multiple strategies to help it deal with children sexual assault offenders in order to ensure that things run accordingly (Prescott, & Rockoff, 2008,). It is because it contains individual from diverse backgrounds and lack of policies to tame their behaviors or to help the country run in one direction might act as a big blow since each person will operate using their own rules and regulations. Registration, residency, internet monitoring, community notification, loitering and civil monitoring are a few of the available policies in place that the United States of America uses to ensure punishment and proper dealing with child sexual assault offenders (Christopher, Lutz-Zois, & Reinhardt, 2007, p. 877).

Registration

Every child sexual assault offender within the United States of America has to register with the appropriate department to ensure that they are marked and do not take part in things like sponsoring a wife, child or even his own kid. Registration of the sexual offenders traces its origin back to mid-1990s when these criminals were only to register with the local police under the Jacob Wetterling Crimes against Children Act (Prescott, & Rockoff, 2008, n. p). The primary role of this action was to enable police keep track of the convicted criminals and ensure that they did not repeat similar crimes in the near future (Christopher, Lutz-Zois, & Reinhardt, 2007, p. 878).

On commencement, this action proved to be of great importance. However, it did not last long before realization by the concerned bodies that it only appealed in their eyes but on the ground where the problem it was very ineffective in the cases of sexual assault were on the rise each day (Smallbone, Marshall, & Wortley, 2013,). 1996 is of great importance in this policy of registration of the sexual assault offenders because it saw amendment to the existing law, thus making the complete information of these offenders available to the entire public.

This brought in the aspect of a photograph of the offenders as well as other things that ensured there was nothing hidden from the public as the internet took a center stage (Christopher, Lutz-Zois, & Reinhardt, 2007, p. 881). However, it important to note that a few states like New York quickly realized that it was very expensive to implement the laws put forth by Megan. Further, they had little or no impact scientifically in the society as far as the issues of reduction of child sexual assault were concerned (Prescott, & Rockoff, 2008, n. p). The only thing that made them appealing is the imagination of its results and effect on the society.

Community notification

It is the second policy that ensures that the United States of America deal with things accordingly so that the issue of sexual assault becomes history in the entire nation (Schiavone, & Jeglic, 2009, p. 690). The primary form of community notification of the sexual assault offenders in the United States of America was mainly the internet because the nation was already advance and internet was already part of the society by then (Christopher, Lutz-Zois, & Reinhardt, 2007, p. 873). Production of books with the names of these individuals as well as their addresses and pictures are the other community notification techniques that the United States security department made use of to ensure that the information was at home (McAlinden, 2006, p. 207). Even though this was appealing to people or the community could quickly identify the individuals convicted of sexual assault offense, and they could easily avoid them when it comes to any deals that would lead to the aspect t of sexual harassment (Schiavone, & Jeglic, 2009, p. 691). However, criminal justice department of the United States of America soon came to the realization that this was not also working out efficiently. As they had anticipated since individuals were becoming used of this and the issue of child sexual assault only diminished for a period, then everything was back to normalcy (Letourneau, et al., 2009, p.150).