Advances in Sex Offender Policy Research: Re-entry and Reintegration I

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

Although measures such as harsher sentencing laws and sexual predator civil commitment statutes have expanded the ranks of sex offenders held in prisons and other institutions, the vast majority of those previously convicted of sexual offenses live within the community. An estimated 35,000 sex offenders are released from prisons into the community each year, nearly 200,000 are under the jurisdiction of probation or parole authorities, and hundreds of thousands more are monitored in the community through systems of sex offender registration and notification. Beyond the general re-entry challenges faced by the broader offender population, those who had been convicted of sexual offenses face additional barriers to successful reintegration, largely as by-products of laws and policies designed to monitor and control sex offenders in the community. In this general context, this session presents a series of analyses and a panel discussion focused on emerging research related to sex offender reintegration, re-offense risk, and desistance from offending.

Sub Unit

• Area II. Types of Offending and Victimization / 26. Violence and Sex Crimes

Individual Presentations

• An Analysis of Sex Offenders Released to the Community, 2001-2010 - Scott Walfield, University of Massachusetts, Lowell; Andrew Harris, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

• 60 Narratives of Sex Offender Reentry: Overcoming Obstacles and Pathways to desistance - Danielle Arlanda Harris, San Jose State University

• A Forty Year Life Course Analysis of a Sample of One Thousand Released Sex Offenders - Kristen M. Zgoba, NJ Department of Corrections; Laura M. Salerno, Rutgers University

Chair

• Andrew Harris, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Discussant

• Andrew Harris, University of Massachusetts, Lowell