Women found guilty of sexual offences are far less likely to reoffend than men, according to a meta-analysis conducted by a Université de Montréal researcher.
Franca Cortoni, professor emeritus at the university’s School of Criminology, updated a meta-analysis first published in 2010, focusing on new studies on female recidivism released since then.
About 15 years later, she found “exactly the same thing.”
“Sexual recidivism rates, meaning women who were detected, sanctioned and convicted of a sexual offence, once they have been processed through the criminal justice system and return to the community with follow-up of five years or more, their recidivism rate is extremely low,” Cortoni said.
Cortoni identified 14 new international studies on female recidivism since 2010, which were included in the latest meta-analysis, published in October in the journal Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health.
“We wanted a broader picture of recidivism rates, because we know they are influenced by practices and laws in different jurisdictions,” she said. “What a meta-analysis allows us to do is highlight the common elements across studies while largely setting aside the biases found in each individual study.”
The study found that “barely three per cent of women” reoffend with a new sexual crime, a rate comparable to the lowest rates observed among men, Cortoni noted.
“These are very important data, because the criminal justice system wants to know not only how to rehabilitate, but also how to prevent reoffending,” she said. “Knowing that women are much less at risk of reoffending than the vast majority of men also suggests different approaches are needed.”
Among men, the sexual recidivism rate is about 13 to 14 per cent, although it varies widely depending on the type of offender.
“With current knowledge and risk assessment tools, we know that some categories, for example, incest offenders with certain characteristics, have recidivism rates no higher than three per cent. They reoffend the least. Other categories of male sexual offenders can have recidivism rates of up to 30 per cent,” Cortoni said.
The situation is different for women. With a recidivism rate of about three per cent, it is “extremely difficult” to determine which female offenders are at higher risk of reoffending, due to limited data, she said.
“In other words, we still can’t distinguish which women may be at greater risk than others, because the rates are so low,” she added.
Cortoni said there are still no solid hypotheses to explain why women commit far fewer crimes overall than men. She suggested it may be linked to human evolution, but emphasized more research is needed.
“We have better answers for why some men engage in sexual assault, whether against children, women or other men, because much more research has been done on men,” she said.
Research on women began to expand with feminist movements in the 1970s, she added.
“Since the 1980s, research has become more systematic, and it really took off in the 1990s, at least in Canada,” Cortoni said.
–This report by La Presse Canadienne was translated by CityNews
