Abstract
Solid empirical data about the psychosocial and biological basis for sex offending provides the foundation for intervention strategies and informed public policy decisions about the disposition and management of sex offenders. Despite substantial data supporting the differentiation of child molesters from rapists (Harris, Mazerolle, & Knight, 2009) there is a paucity of studies that have explored the differential risk factors for these groups (Parent, Guay, & Knight, 2011). Sex offending carries much-debated legal consequences: civil commitment, public registries, and the possible Sexually Violent Person (SVP) label. Critical to imposing these consequences, especially SVP decisions, is the question of whether the predicted sexual recidivism attributed to an offender is high enough to warrant commitment. Empirical literature on sex offending has yielded a wide range of generic variables purported to predict future offending (Knight, 1989; Robertson & Knight, 2014), but little work has differentiated those that are most appropriate for child molesters and rapists. Child molesters seem to carry the most specialized careers and differentiating developmental variables (Lehmann et al., 2014; Harris, Smallbone, Dennison, & Knight, 2009). The purpose of the present study was to explore combining crime scene analysis and archivally derived traits theoretically specific to child molesters in an attempt to maximize prediction of sexual recidivism.