Introduction |All inmates released |Reconvictions by violent offenders released from prison |Reconvictions by sex offenders released from prison | Summary
Table 25 shows that under a third (30%) of sex offenders released from prison were reconvicted of some offence within two years of their release, and under half (47%) were reconvicted within five years. Both these proportions are considerably lower than those seen earlier for all inmates released from prison (73% reconvicted within two years, and 86% reconvicted within five years), and for all violent offenders released (65% reconvicted within two years, and 79% reconvicted within five years).
For the minority of sex offenders who were reconvicted within two years of their release, the most common offence they were convicted of was a traffic offence.
Table 26 shows the percentage of all sex offenders released from prison in the period 1995 to 1998 that were reconvicted of a sex offence within specified time periods.
Within two years of their release from prison, only 3% of all sex offenders were reconvicted for a sex offence, while within five years the percentage was 7%. The proportion reconvicted for a sex offence within five years for inmates released for sexual violation (rape or unlawful sexual connection) was lower than this at 4%, while for inmates released for attempted sexual violation it was higher at 13% (although some care should be taken in interpreting this figure as it is based on a relatively small number of inmates (32)).
There were no individual non-sexual offence types with a high likelihood of reconviction for a sex offence. The greatest was found to be inmates released from a prison sentence for aggravated burglary – 5% were convicted of a sex offence within two years, and 10% were convicted of a sex offence within five years.
Table 27 shows the number of reconvictions for sex offences within two years for inmates released from prison for a sex offence between 1995 and 1998, according to the number of previous convictions for sex offences. Most (82%) of the inmates released from prison for a sex offence had not previously been convicted of a sex offence, and less than 3% of such inmates were reconvicted of a sex offence within two years of their release. Inmates released from prison for a sex offence who had one to five previous convictions for a sex offence were a little more likely than this to be reconvicted of a sex offence within two years (6% of cases). There were 25 inmates released from prison for a sex offence who had previously been convicted of more than five sex offences. Of these, five (20%) were reconvicted of a sex offence within two years, although caution must be taken with this figure because of the small number of inmates.
