MULS Professor Michael O’Hear has a new article out: Managing the Risk of Violent Recidivism: Lessons from Legal Responses to Sexual Offenses. See the abstract below, and click here for the article.
Over the course of a generation, American legislatures have quietly adopted an intricate web of measures intended to reduce the risk that individuals who have been convicted of violent crimes will commit new violent crimes. These measures include, for instance, sentencing and corrections laws that categorically target “violent offenses” and “violent offenders” for harsher treatment, prohibitions on pretrial diversion opportunities, employment restrictions, and long-term offender registration requirements. Such measures parallel a generally similar, but more closely studied, set of laws that aim to reduce sexual recidivism.
This article provides an overview of the literature on sexual-recidivism measures, especially sexual offender registration and notification (“SORN”) and civil commitment for sexually violent predators (“SVPs”), and considers lessons that may be drawn for the improved management of violent-recidivism risk.
