title: Contact sexual offending by men with online sexual offenses.
abstract: There is much concern about the likelihood that online sexual offenders (particularly online child pornography offenders) have either committed or will commit offline sexual offenses involving contact with a victim. This study addresses this question in two meta-analyses: the first examined the contact sexual offense histories of online offenders, whereas the second examined the recidivism rates from follow-up studies of online offenders. The first meta-analysis found that approximately 1 in 8 online offenders (12%) have an officially known contact sexual offense history at the time of their index offense (k = 21, N = 4,464). Approximately one in two (55%) online offenders admitted to a contact sexual offense in the six studies that had self-report data (N = 523). The second meta-analysis revealed that 4.6% of online offenders committed a new sexual offense of some kind during a 1.5- to 6-year follow-up (k = 9, N = 2,630); 2.0% committed a contact sexual offense and 3.4% committed a new child pornography offense. The results of these two quantitative reviews suggest that there may be a distinct subgroup of online-only offenders who pose relatively low risk of committing contact sexual offenses in the future.
authors.affiliation: Royal Ottawa Health Care Group, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. michael.seto@rohcg.on.ca
authors.forename: Michael C
authors.initials: MC
authors.lastname: Seto
authors.forename: R Karl
authors.initials: RK
authors.lastname: Hanson
authors.forename: Kelly M
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Babchishin
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002648:Child; D002650:Child Abuse, Sexual / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D003417:Criminal Psychology; D057237:Criminals / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004882:Erotica / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007179:Incest / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D008297:Male; D010378:Pedophilia / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control; D011902:Rape; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012307:Risk Factors