Ohio RSO Research

This page will be specifically for Ohio-specific sex offender research.

http://engagedscholarship.csuohio.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1108&context=jlh

Margaret Troia. Ohio's Sex Offender Residency Restriction Law: Does it Protect the Health and Safety of the State's Children or Falsely Make People Believe So. Clevelenad State University Journal of Law & Health. 2005.

Brief-- "Sex offender residency laws may actually increase recidivism rates while placing unjustified burdens on sex offenders and their family members. Furthermore, because these laws target stranger perpetrators, they do not prevent the majority of sex crimes committed by acquaintances or family members of the victim. This results in parents being lulled into a false sense of security that their children are protected from these laws, when in fact they are not. Yet supporters of these laws
maintain that prohibiting known child sex offenders from living near schools or similar facilities bears a reasonable relationship to protecting children since the amount of incidental contact and opportunity to commit crimes is reduced. However, no research shows any link between where sex offenders live and recidivism rates. Still, courts have unanimously upheld sex offender residency
restriction against a variety of constitutional attacks. Despite criticisms and concerns, states continue to enforce and defend laws restricting where sex offenders may live even though these laws do not protect children effectively.

http://www.drc.state.oh.us/web/reports/ten_year_recidivism.pdf

Ten-Year Recidivism Follow-Up Of 1989 Sex Offender Releases. Ohio Dept. of Rehabilitation & Correction. 2001.

Summary: The baseline recidivism rate of sex offenders followed-up for ten years after
release from prison was 34%. This rate was comprised of:

Recommitment for a New Crime 22.3 %
Sex Offense 8.0 %
Non-Sex Offense 14.3 %

Recommitment for a Technical Violation 11.7 %
Sex Offense 1.3 %
Sex Lapse 1.7 %
Non-sex Related 8.7 %

The total sex-related recidivism rate, including technical violations of
supervision conditions, was 11.0%.

Recidivism rates differed considerably based on a victim typology:
Sex offender type-- General recidivism, Sex recidivism
Rapists – (adult victims) 56.6%, 17.5%
Child Molester – extrafamilial 29.2%, 8.7%
Child Molester – incest 13.2%, 7.4%

Sex offenders who returned for a new sex related offense did so within a few
years of release. Of all the sex offenders who came back to an Ohio prison for
a new sex offense, one half did so within two years, and two-thirds within
three years.

Paroled Sex offenders completing basic sex offender programming (level 1)
while incarcerated appeared to have a somewhat lower recidivism rate than those
who did not have programming. This was true both for recidivism of any type
(33.9% with programming recidivated compared with 55.3% without
programming) and sex-related recidivism (7.1% with programming recidivated
compared with 16.5% without programming).