Date of Award
Summer 2011
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Counselor Education and Counseling Psychology
First Advisor
Burkard, Alan W.
Second Advisor
Tyre, Christopher
Third Advisor
Campbell, Todd
Abstract
There has been a large body of research conducted on establishing a valid set of predictors of sexual offender recidivism in the past 20 years. However, despite findings that indicate that prior history of sexual offenses serves as a primary predictor of sexual offense recidivism, there has been little focus on the impact of institutional sexual misconduct on sexual offense recidivism rates. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between institutional sexual behavior and sexual offense recidivism rates amongst a sample of male offenders who received a sexual misconduct report while incarcerated and/or was convicted of a sexual offense. Additionally, this study explored whether instances of institutional sexual misconduct added to the variance accounted for by actuarial measures commonly used in Sexually Violent Predator Civil Commitment evaluation procedures. Results revealed that there is little association between sexual offense recidivism rates and receipt of institutional sexual conduct reports unless an offender is issued multiple sexual conduct reports during the same period of incarceration. Additionally, the actuarial measures used in the study were not found to be predictive of sexual offense recidivism. Implications for conducting Sexually Violent Predator Civil Commitment evaluations, identifying institutional sexual offender treatment needs, and identifying community supervision practices are discussed, and future research directions are proposed.