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Intellectual disability (ID) is associated with violent and sexual offending and victimization, but the importance of neuropsychiatric comorbidity and severity of disability remains unclear. In a register-based cohort study of people born in Sweden 1980-1991 (n = 1 232 564), we investigated associations of mild and moderate/severe ID with any, violent and sexual crimes, and with assault victimization, stratified by comorbid autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We defined ID by attendance at a special school or registered diagnosis and obtained data on criminal convictions and injuries or deaths due to assaults from nationwide registers until end of 2013. Compared to people without ID, autism or ADHD, men and women with mild or moderate/severe ID and comorbid ADHD had elevated risks of violent crimes [range of hazard ratios (HRs) 4.4-10.4] and assault victimization (HRs 2.0-7.7). Women with mild ID without comorbidities or with comorbid autism also had elevated risks of violent crimes and victimization (HRs 1.8-4.6) compared to women without ID, autism or ADHD. The relative risks of sexual offending and victimization were elevated in men and women with ID without comorbidities (HRs 2.6-12.7). The highest risks for sexual offending in men (HRs 9.4-11.0) and for sexual assault victimization in women (HRs 11.0-17.1) related to ID and comorbid ADHD. The elevated risk of violent offending and assault victimization in people with ID is largely explained by comorbid ADHD, whereas ID is independently associated with sexual crimes and victimization, even though absolute risks are low.

The unequal spatial distribution of crime is an enduring feature of cities. While research suggests that spatial diffusion processes heighten this concentration, the actual mechanisms of diffusion are not well understood as research rarely measures the ways in which people, groups, and behaviors connect neighborhoods. This study considers how a particular behavior, criminal co-offending, creates direct and indirect pathways between neighborhoods. Analyzing administrative records and survey data, the authors find that individual acts of co-offending link together to create a “network of neighborhoods,” facilitating the diffusion of crime over time and across space and, in so doing, create pathways between all Chicago neighborhoods. Statistical analyses demonstrate that these neighborhood networks are (1) stable over time; (2) generated by important structural characteristics, social processes, and endogenous network properties; and (3) a better predictor of the geographic distribution of crime than traditional spatial models.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, state-level governments across the United States issued mandatory stay-at-home orders around the end of March 2020. Though intended to stop the spread of the COVID-19 virus, the lockdowns have had sweeping impacts on life in ways which were not originally planned. This study’s purpose is to investigate the extent to which governmental responses to COVID-19 have impacted crime rates in the U.S. Compared to the pre-pandemic year of 2019, crime – as measured by calls for service to law enforcement – has decreased markedly. However, there are multiple indications that the crime drop is being driven by decreases in minor offenses which are typically committed in peer groups. At the same time, serious crimes which are generally not committed with co-offenders (namely homicide and intimate partner violence) have either remained constant or increased. As such, the crime drop appears to be hiding a very disturbing trend where homicides remain unchanged and intimate partner batteries are increasing. Since many offenders would presumably be committing less serious crimes in a non-pandemic world, we raise attention to the possibility that mandatory lockdown orders may have taken minor offenders and placed them into situations where there is rampant opportunity for intimate partner violence, serious batteries, and homicides. While crime in the U.S. appears to be down overall, this good news should not blind us to a troubling co-occurring reality – a reality that paints a dim picture of unintended consequences to public health and criminal justice finances as a result of COVID-19 lockdowns.

The sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism (SECTT), also referred to as child sex tourism, involves engaging in sexual activity with someone under the age of 18 in the context of travel and/or tourism. Research on the perpetration of SECTT is vastly underdeveloped. The present review considers the operationalization of SECTT, its prevalence, and existing theoretical models. Existing theory on SECTT provides a good overview of environmental factors that contribute to SECTT, but the model is insufficient in fully accounting for individual-level risk factors related to sexual offending against children. The present paper expands an existing theoretical model of SECTT, the ecosystem model, to account for these individual risk factors and considers their interaction with environmental factors. The paper concludes by highlighting different avenues for future research.

This study sought to examine neuropsychological functioning in men with pedophilic disorder (PD), in order to assess whether findings from prior neuropsychological studies are replicated in a diverse sample including men with non-contact sexual offenses. It was hypothesized that when non-contact offenders are included in the study, a slowed processing speed will emerge as the only finding unique to men with PD. A comprehensive neuropsychological battery was administered to 58 men convicted of a sexual offense, 20 of whom were classified as having PD. The sample included men with contact sexual offenses ( n  = 33), non-contact sexual offenses ( n  = 5), and child sexual abuse material (CSAM) offenses ( n  = 20). Test performance was compared by PD status. Participants with PD performed significantly better on verbal memory and visual discrimination than those without PD. Men with PD made more errors on a set-shifting task but no significant differences were seen in domains of attention, intellectual functioning, visual learning and memory, visuospatial ability, or language ability. Effect sizes were generally small, although some medium effects were seen (visual discrimination and verbal learning and memory). Scores in both groups (with and without PD) were generally in the average range across tasks. Within the subgroup of CSAM offenders, minimal differences emerged between those with and without PD, although those with PD were slower on visuomotor set-shifting but made fewer errors ( d  = − 0.89). CSAM offenders with PD were in the high average range on many tasks of intellectual functioning; however, a potential trend was identified such that CSAM offenders without PD had lower scores on a task of verbal learning and memory, with medium effect sizes observed. As few differences in neuropsychological functioning emerged when comparing offenders with and without PD, differences demonstrated in prior research may be better attributed to contact offending status rather than sexual interest.

Objective To demonstrate how visualization can aid in understanding crime rate data and provide new insights and hypotheses for some central criminological questions about homicide offending over time. Methods The research uses arrest data that is based on a mixture of single year age data and other age groupings to produce single years of age estimates of homicide offending for those 15–64 from 1964 to 2019. This data is then presented in surface plots, contour plots, and with graphs based on simple statistics to address four areas of research: the increase in homicide rates from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s, the drop in homicide offending from the early 1990s to 2000, the epidemic of youth homicide, and the invariance of the homicide age-curve. Results The epidemic of youth homicide (ages 15–24) lasts well into the period when homicide rates dropped in the 1990s. For most of the population (excluding those 15–24) the homicide drop is initiated around 1980 rather than the early 1990s. However, the homicide increase of mid-1960s to mid-1970s included increases in the homicide rate for both those 15–24 and those not in the 15–24 age group. Conclusions Researchers can learn much about important areas in criminology by examining the relationship between age and homicide offending using simple visualizations based on raw data and pursue what they learn using line graphs based on elementary statistics and simple statistical methods. Of course, complicated statistical methods are called for in many situations.

ObjectivesApproaches to the study of Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs OMCGs tend to focus on offending at the individual level, with limited focus on the nature and extent of co-offending among these affiliates. We aim to examine co-offending by using relational hyper event models (RHEM) to determine what additional insights can be discerned on co-offending above and beyond more traditional network approaches.MethodsUsing de-identified police recorded incident data for affiliates of OMCGs in New South Wales, Australia, including their rank and club affiliation, we examined the positioning of OMCG affiliates in co-offending network structures. The data comprised 2,364 nodes and 12,564 arrest events. We argue that Relational Hyperevent Models (RHEM) are the optimal analytical strategy for co-offending data as it overcomes some of the limitations of traditional co-offending analyses.ResultsWe conducted RHEM modelling and found that co-offending networks were stable over time, whereby actors tended to repeatedly co-offend with the same partners. Lower ranked members were more likely to engage in co-offending compared with office bearers.ConclusionsResults provide some support for the scenario in which OMCGs operate as criminal organisations, but also the protection and distance from offending that is afforded to office bearers. We review implications of the results for law enforcement policy and practice and for the scholarship of OMCGs.

There is little empirical research examining the reasons behind multiple perpetrator sexual offending. A limited number of studies provide reasons for offending offered by perpetrators of this type of sexual violence, but only one published study exists where these perpetrators were interviewed regarding their offense. The Multi-Factorial Model of Multiple Perpetrator Sexual Offending (MPSO) proposed that various factors (individual, sociocultural, and situational) play a role in this type of sexual assault, noting in particular the importance of group dynamics and processes. In the current study, 25 convicted perpetrators of multiple perpetrator sexual offending housed in educational centers and prisons in Portugal were interviewed about their involvement and reasons for participating in the offense. The findings suggested that group processes and dynamics play an important part in this type of sexual offending. Furthermore, the results provided some evidence to support the factors proposed by the Multi-Factorial Model of MPSO. These findings have implications for prevention and treatment programs and for the assessment of offenders.

Beginning with the last review of gender and crime that appeared in the Annual Review of Sociology (1996), I examine the developments in the more traditional approaches to this subject (the gender ratio problem and the problem of theoretical generalization), life course research, and feminist research (gendered pathways, gendered crime, and gendered lives). This review highlights important insights that have emerged in this work on gender and crime, and it considers how this work might be farther enriched by drawing on sociological theories that can address how gendered lives shape the impetus and opportunities for offending. This includes work on the context of offending, the learning and expression of emotions, and identity theory.

Objectives To examine the extent to which there are differences in the developmental course of offending among individuals with maltreatment histories, compared to nonmaltreated controls, and whether these patterns vary for males and females. Methods This paper uses data from a longitudinal study in which abused and neglected children (N = 908) were matched with non-maltreated children (N = 667) and followed prospectively into adulthood. Group-based trajectory modeling was conducted using official criminal history records collected through mean age 51. Patterns of criminal offending were first considered for the whole sample, with abuse status and sex included as time-stable covariates, and then separately by subgroup (control females, maltreated females, control males and maltreated males). Results Analyses revealed that a three-group model provided the best fit (nonoffenders, low-level chronic offenders, mid-level chronic offenders) for the overall sample. Child maltreatment and sex were significant predictors, with offenders more likely to be male and abused/neglected, compared to non-offenders. Separate analyses for the four subgroups revealed some similarities across groups in the characterization of offending trajectories, although trajectories for abused/neglected females differed significantly from trajectories for control females. Additional analyses suggest that desistance from offending may be largely a function of incapacitation due to early death, rather than imprisonment. Conclusions These new analyses provide evidence that child maltreatment affects patterns of offending and that there is an impact on females and males, although the impact differs by gender. Future research should build on this work by examining the mechanisms through which child maltreatment leads to differential patterns of offending throughout the life course.