This study examined the recidivism rates of female sexual offenders. A meta-analysis of 10 studies (2,490 offenders; average follow-up 6.5 years) showed that female sexual offenders have extremely low rates of sexual recidivism (less than 3%). The recidivism rates for violent (including sexual) offences and for any type of crime were predictably higher than the recidivism rates for sexual offences but still lower than the recidivism rates of male sexual offenders. These findings indicate the need for distinct policies and procedures for assessing and managing the risk of male and female sexual offenders. Risk assessment tools developed specifically for male sexual offenders would be expected to substantially overestimate the recidivism risk of female sexual offenders.
References marked with an asterisk were included in the meta-analysis.
2.
Andrews, D.A., & Bonta, J. ( 2006). The psychology of criminal conduct (4th ed.). Newark, NJ: LexisNexis .
3.
Barker, J. (2009). A "typical" female offender. In J. Barker (Ed.), Women and the criminal justice system: A Canadian perspective (pp. 63-87). Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Emond Montgomery.
4.
Blanchette, K., & Brown, S.L. ( 2006). The assessment and treatment of women offenders: An integrated perspective. Chichester, England: John Wiley.
5.
Bonta, J., Rugge, T., & Dauvergne, M. ( 2003). The reconviction rate of federal offenders (User Report No. 2003-03). Ottawa, Ontario , Canada: Public Safety Canada. Retrieved from http://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/res/cor/rep/_fl/2003-02-rec-rte-eng.pdf
6.
*Broadhurst, R., & Loh, N. ( 2003). The probabilities of sex offender re-arrest. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, 13, 121-139.
7.
Campbell, A., Muncer, S., & Bibel, D. ( 2001). Women and crime: An evolutionary approach. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 6, 481-497.
8.
Cohen, J. ( 1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioural sciences (2nd ed.). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
9.
Comack, E., & Brickey, S. ( 2007). Constituting the violence of criminalized women . Canadian Journal of Criminology and Criminal Justice, 49, 1-36.
10.
Cortoni, F. (in press). The assessment of female sexual offenders. In T. A. Gannon & F. Cortoni (Eds.), Female sexual offenders: Theory, assessment, and treatment. Chichester, England: Wiley-Blackwell.
11.
Cortoni, F., & Hanson, R.K. ( 2005). A review of the recidivism rates of adult female sexual offenders (Research Rep. No. R-169). Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Correctional Service Canada. Retrieved from www.csc-scc.gc.ca/text/rsrch/reports/r169/r169_e.pdf
12.
Cortoni, F., Hanson, R.K., & Coache, M.E. ( 2009). Les délinquantes sexuelles: Prévalence et récidive [Female sexual offenders: Prevalence and recidivism]. Revue internationale de criminologie et de police technique et scientifique , LXII, 319-336.
13.
Denov, M.S. ( 2003). The myth of innocence: sexual scripts and the recognition of child sexual abuse by female perpetrators. Journal of Sex Research, 40, 303-314.
14.
Denov, M.S. ( 2004). Perspectives on female sex offending. Hampshire, England: Ashgate.
15.
Eisenhart, C. ( 1947). Inverse sine transformation of proportions. In C. Eisenhart, M. W. Hastay , & W. A. Wallis (Eds.), Selected techniques of statistical analysis for scientific and industrial research and production and management engineering (pp. 395-416). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
16.
Fleiss, J.L., Levin, B., & Paik, M.C. ( 2003). Statistical methods for rates and proportions (3rd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
17.
Folsom, J., & Atkinson, J.L. (2007). The generalizability of the LSI-R and the CAT to the prediction of recidivism in female offenders . Criminal Justice and Behavior, 34, 1044-1056.
18.
Gannon, T.A., Rose, M.R., & Ward, T. ( 2008). A descriptive model of the offense process for female sexual offenders. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment, 20, 352-374.
19.
Giguere, R., & Bumby, K. ( 2007). Female sex offenders. Silver Spring, Maryland: Center for Effective Public Policy, Center for Sex Offender Management. Retrieved from http://www.csom.org/pubs/female%5Fsex%5Foffenders%5Fbrief.pdf
20.
Hanson, R.K., & Bussière, M.T. (1998). Predicting relapse: A meta-analysis of sexual offender recidivism. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 66, 348-362.
21.
*Hanson, R.K., Harris, A.J.R., Scott, T.L., & Helmus, L. ( 2007). Assessing the risk of sexual offenders on community supervision: The Dynamic Supervision Project (User Rep. No.2007-05). Ottawa, Ontario , Canada: Public Safety Canada. Retrieved from www.public-safety.gc.ca/res/cor/rep/_fl/crp2007-05-en.pdf
22.
Hanson, R.K., & Morton-Bourgon, K.E. (2004). Predictors of sexual recidivism: An updated meta-analysis (User Rep. No. 2004-02). Retrieved from www.publicsafety.gc.ca/res/cor/rep/2004-02-pred-se-eng.aspx
23.
Hanson, R.K., & Morton-Bourgon, K.E. (2005). The characteristics of persistent sexual offenders: A meta-analysis of recidivism studies. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 73, 1154-1163.
24.
Harris, A.J.R., & Hanson, R.K. ( 2003). The Dynamic Supervision Project: Improving the community supervision of sex offenders. Corrections Today , 65, 60-62.
25.
Harris, A.J.R., Phenix, A., Hanson, R.K., & Thornton, D. ( 2003). STATIC-99 coding rules revised-2003 ( User Rep. No. 2003-03). Retrieved from www.publicsafety.gc.ca/res/cor/rep/_fl/2003-03-stc-cde-eng.pdf
26.
Hedderman, C. ( 2004). The "criminogenic" needs of women offenders. In G. McIvor (Ed.), Women who offend (pp. 227-244). London, England: Jessica Kingsley.
27.
Hedges, L.V. ( 1994). Fixed effect models. In H. Cooper & L. V. Hedges (Eds.), The handbook of research synthesis (pp. 285-299). New York, NY : Russell Sage.
28.
Hedges, L.V., & Olkin, I. ( 1985). Statistical methods for meta-analysis. New York, NY: Academic Press.
29.
Hedges, L.V., & Vevea, J.L. ( 1998). Fixed- and random-effects models in meta-analysis . Psychological Methods, 3, 486-504.
30.
*Holley, G., & Ensley, D. ( 2003). Recidivism report: Inmates released from Florida prisons July 1995 to June 2001. Tallahassee: Florida Department of Corrections.
31.
Holtfreter, K., & Cupp, R. ( 2007). Gender and risk assessment: The empirical status of the LSI-R for women. Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice , 23, 363-382.
32.
*Home Office. (1998-2003). Prison statistics England and Wales (yearly reports: 1997 to 2002). London, England: Her Majesty’s Stationary Office .
33.
Johansson-Love, J., & Fremouw, W. ( 2006). A critique of the female sexual perpetrator research . Aggression and Violent Behavior, 11, 12-26.
34.
Kemshall, H. ( 2004). Risk, dangerousness and female offenders. In G. McIvor (Ed.), Women who offend (pp. 209-226). London, England: Jessica Kingsley.
35.
Kong, R., & AuCoin, K. (2008). Female offenders in Canada (No. 85-002-XIE). Ottawa, Ontario, Canada: Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics .
36.
Langan, P.A., & Levin, D.J. ( 2002). Recidivism of prisoners released in 1994 (Special report) . Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, US Department of Justice. Retrieved from www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/rpr94.pdf
37.
Manchak, M.A., Skeem, J.L., Douglas, K.S., & Siranosian, M. (2009). Does gender moderate the predictive utility of the Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) for serious violent offenders?Criminal Justice and Behavior, 36, 425-442.
38.
*Minnesota Department of Corrections. (2007 ). Sex offender recidivism in Minnesota. Saint-Paul, MN: Author. Retrieved from www.doc.state.mn.us/publications/publications.htm#so
39.
Overton, R.C. ( 1998). A comparison of fixed-effects and mixed (random-effects) models for meta-analysis tests of moderator variable effects. Psychological Methods, 3, 354-379.
40.
Pereda, N., Guilera, G., Forns, M., & Gómez-Benito, J. (2009). The prevalence of child sexual abuse in community and student samples: A meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 4, 328-338.
41.
*Peterson, K.D., Colebank, K.D., & Motta, L.L. ( 2001, November). Female sexual offender recidivism. Paper presented at the 20th Annual Research and Treatment Conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, San Antonio, TX.
42.
Pollock, J.M., Mullings, J., & Crouch, B. ( 2002). Drugs and criminality: Results from the Texas women inmates study. Women and Criminal Justice, 13, 69-97.
43.
Quinsey, V.L., Lalumière, M.L., Rice, M.E., & Harris, G.T. ( 1995). Predicting sexual offenses. In J. C. Campbell (Ed.), Assessing dangerousness: Violence by sexual offenders, batterers, and child abusers (pp. 114-137). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
44.
Quinsey, V.L., Skilling, T.A., Lalumière, M.L., & Craig, W.M. ( 2004). Juvenile delinquency: Understanding the origins of individual differences. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
45.
*Sandler, J.C., & Freeman, N.J. ( 2009). Female sex offender recidivism: A large-scale empirical analysis. Sexual Abuse: A Journal of Research and Treatment , 21, 455-473.
46.
Sommers, I., & Baskin, D.R. ( 1993). The situational context of violent female offending . Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 30, 136-162.
47.
Statistics Canada. (2007). Adult criminal court survey, number of cases by sex of accused, annual ( CANSIM Table252-0023). Retrieved from http://cansim2.statcan.gc.ca/
48.
*Vandiver, D. ( 2007, March). An examination of re-arrest rates of 942 male and 471 female registered sex offenders. Paper presented at the Academy of the Criminal Justice Sciences, Feature Panel on Sex Offenders, Seattle, WA.
49.
Vandiver, D.M., & Walker, J.T. ( 2002). Female sex offenders: An overview and analysis of 40 cases. Criminal Justice Review, 27, 284-300.
50.
Wijkman, M., & Bijleveld, C. ( 2008, September). Female sex offenders: Recidivism and criminal careers. Paper presented at the 8th Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, Edinburgh, Scotland .
51.
*Wijkman, M., Zoutewelle-Terovan, M., & Bijleveld, C. ( 2009, June). Vrouwelijke zedendelinquenten [Female sexual offenders] . Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Netherlands Society of Criminology, Leiden, Netherlands.
52.
*Williams, S.M., & Nicholaichuk, R. (2001, November). Assessing static risk factors in adult female sex offenders under federal jurisdiction in Canada . Paper presented at the 20th Annual Research and Treatment Conference of the Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers , San Antonio, TX.
53.
Whitehead, A. ( 2002). Meta-analysis of controlled clinical trials. Chichester, England: John Wiley.
