TITLE:
Criminal Recidivism of Illegal Pornography Offenders in the Overall Population—A National Cohort Study of 4612 Offenders in Switzerland
AUTHORS:
Anne Goller, Roland Jones, Volker Dittmann, Pamela Taylor, Marc Graf
KEYWORDS:
Sex Offenders, Illegal Pornography, Recidivism, Child Sexual Offence, Internet
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Applied Sociology,
Vol.6 No.2,
February
16,
2016
ABSTRACT: Convictions for taking, possessing and distributing pornographic
photographs of children have increased with the growing use of the Internet.
Previous studies of any progression to contact offences have been small scale
and only a few of these have included an investigation of subsequent
reconvictions for use of illegal and especially of child pornography. The aims
of the present study are to compare reconviction rates among illegal pornography
offenders with and without previous child contact offences. The former are
referred to as “dual offenders”. This study is a national cohort study of all
individuals in Switzerland convicted of an illegal pornography offence since
1973 and was followed-up until 1st November 2008. Reconvictions were
ascertained using criminal records from the Federal Office of Justice of
Switzerland, leading to a total of 4612 offenders, consisting of 4249 illegal
pornography offenders and 363 dual offenders. Comparison of 3-year reconviction
rates showed that only 0.2% of the illegal pornography offenders were convicted
of contact child sex offences, whereas 2.6% of the dual offenders were reconvicted.
The illegal pornography offenders were also significantly less likely to be
convicted of further pornography offences, or indeed other sexual offences. The
very low “progression rate” among illegal pornography offenders to contact
child sexual offences, and their low rate of even repeat pornography offences
suggests that community sentences remain appropriate. It is important, however,
to bear in mind that conviction rates tend to underestimate the true offending
rates, and that with greater access to the Internet, characteristics of
pornography users may change over time.