Evaluation of New York State's Sex Offender Civil Management Assessment Process Recidivism Outcomes

Abstract

Research SummaryWe sought to evaluate New York State's sex offender civil management law by (a) investigating the sexual rearrest of offenders who were screened for possible civil management but who did not receive it and (b) evaluating the accuracy of the multi‐tiered civil management screening and assessment process. Our results indicated that each step in the multi‐tiered assessment process is effectively and accurately identifying higher risk offenders. Additionally, after a 5‐year follow‐up period, 4.6% of the offenders screened by the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) who did not receive civil management were rearrested for a sexual offense, which was a significant 36.1% decrease from the 7.2% five‐year sexual rearrest rate found before the enactment of civil management.Policy ImplicationsThe results suggest that the screening process used by OMH to implement New York's civil management initiative is accurately identifying lower and higher risk offenders. The size of the public safety gains from civil management, however, need to be kept in perspective. A 2.6% reduction in the sexual rearrest rate is certainly a significant reduction in rearrests, but it is still a small reduction within the scope of overall sexual offending. The constitutional limits placed on civil management, however, make it difficult for these programs to have further public safety gains than those already achieved. As such, additional efforts to produce further meaningful reductions of not just recidivism but of all sexual assault should continue to be explored.