No abstract

In an effort to reduce sex offense recidivism, local and state governments have recently passed legislation prohibiting sex offenders from living within a certain distance (500 to 2,500 feet) of child congregation locations such as schools, parks, and daycare centers. Examining the potential deterrent effects of a residency restrictions law in Minnesota, this study analyzed the offense patterns of every sex offender released from Minnesota correctional facilities between 1990 and 2002 who was reincarcerated for a new sex offense prior to 2006. Given that not one of the 224 sex offenses would have likely been prevented by residency restrictions, the findings from this study provide little support for the notion that such restrictions would significantly reduce sexual recidivism.

Research Summary The relationship between reliability and validity is an important but often overlooked topic of research on risk assessment tools in the criminal justice system. By using data from the Minnesota Screening Tool Assessing Recidivism Risk (MnSTARR), a risk assessment instrument the Minnesota Department of Corrections (MnDOC) developed and began using in 2013, we evaluated the impact of inter‐rater reliability (IRR) on predictive performance (validity) among offenders released in 2014. After comparing the reliability of a manual scoring process with an automated one, we found the MnSTARR was scored with a high degree of consistency by MnDOC staff as intraclass correlation (ICC) values ranged from 0.81 to 0.94. But despite this level of IRR, we still observed a degradation in predictive validity given that automated assessments significantly outperformed those that had been scored manually. Additional analyses revealed that the more inter‐rater disagreement increased, the more predictive performance decreased. The results from our cost–benefit analyses, which examined the anticipated impact of the MnDOC's efforts to automate the MnSTARR, showed that for every dollar to be spent on automation, the estimated return will be at least $4.35 within the first year and as much as $21.74 after the fifth year. Policy Implications Although it is unclear the degree to which our findings, which are somewhat preliminary, are generalizable to other offender populations and correctional systems, we believe the results are sufficiently promising to warrant greater interest in automating the assessment of risk and need. We anticipate many, if not most, correctional systems may need to invest in upgrading their IT infrastructure to support the use of automated instruments. But we also anticipate this investment would deliver a favorable return for our results suggest that automation reduces inter‐rater disagreement, which in turn improves predictive performance. Even if automation did not improve performance, the increased efficiency it produces would create reinvestment opportunities within correctional systems.

Research Summary: Mass shootings have been identified as a novel American crime problem. The term is merely a new name, however, for an older crime problem-mass murder. The social construction of the mass shooting and mass murder problems have both been driven by "mass public shootings"-incidents that occur in the absence of other criminal activity (e.g., robberies, drug deals, and gang "turf wars") in which a gun was used to kill four or more victims at a public location within a 24-hour period. Using data on 845 mass shootings, including 158 mass public shootings, which occurred in the United States between 1976 and 2018, in this study, I analyze trends in their prevalence and severity (i.e., number of victims killed and wounded). After controlling for growth in the U.S. population, the results show the late 1980s and early 1990s had the highest incidence of mass shootings. Both the incidence and severity of mass public shootings, on the other hand, have increased over the last decade. I also describe the patterns of mass public shootings by reporting incident and offender characteristics.Policy Implications: Despite the recent growth in mass public shootings, the infrequency with which they occur makes it very challenging to develop broad measures that will reduce their incidence or severity. It may therefore be more effective to focus on strategies that that have shown promise in decreasing violence in general.

Although Megan's Law was passed more than 10 years ago, very little is known as to whether it reduces sex offender recidivism significantly. Using a retrospective quasi-experimental design, we examine whether community notification has a deterrent effect by comparing the recidivism rates of 155 level 3 ("high public risk") sex offenders released from Minnesota prisons between 1997 and 2002 who were subject to broad notification with two separate control groups who were not. The first control group (referred to as the prenotification group) contained 125 sex offenders released between 1990 and 1996 (the 7 years preceding the implementation of the Community Notification Act) who likely would have been subject to broad community notification had the law been in effect at the time of their release. The second control group (referred to as the non-notification group) was composed of 155 offenders (37 level 1 and 118 level 2) released between 1997 and 2002 who were not subject to broad community notification. The results from the Cox proportional hazards models reveal that broad community notification significantly reduced the risk of time to a sex reoffense (rearrest, reconviction, and reincarceration) compared with both control groups. The findings were mixed, however, for both