A 24‐Year Follow‐up Study on Recidivism in Male Mentally Disordered Sexual Offenders With and Without Psychotic Disorders

Abstract

There is a lack of knowledge on mentally disordered sex offenders (MDSOs) targeting adult victims, especially regarding recidivism patterns and the specific subgroup with psychiatric disorders. This paper presents index offense data, clinical data, and recidivism patterns over up to 24 years in a cohort of 146 MDSOs, with and without psychotic disorders, sentenced in Sweden between 1993 and 1997. At the time of the offense, all offenders were affected by clinical, developmental, and criminal history factors. MDSOs with psychotic disorders only marginally differed from those without, the former being less likely to have been institutionalized during childhood, intoxicated during the index offense, or diagnosed with a personality disorder, substance use disorder, or paraphilic disorder. In the cohort, 3.4% of the MDSOs were reconvicted for a new sex offense over 2 years, 9.6% over 5 years, 13.0% over 10 years, and 17.1% over the entire follow-up period of 24 years. In MDSOs with psychotic disorders, no subjects were reconvicted during the first 2 years, while 2.6% were reconvicted over 5 years, 5.3% over 10 years, and 7.9% over 24 years. Recidivism rates for violent and general reoffenses were 39.0% and 37.7%, respectively, for the cohort of MDSOs, and subjects with psychotic disorders reoffended significantly later in general offenses. In conclusion, MDSOs with psychotic disorders showed the same recidivism pattern as MDSOs without psychotic disorders. Furthermore, recidivism research may preferably focus on follow-up periods of 5-10 years since most offenders appear to recidivate within this timeframe.