Why do predictors of sexual recidivism predict?
Sex offenders are not simply bundles of variables. Characteristics that may be important to actuarials have little inherent meaning as they indicate associations but do not in themselves imply causation. They become useful in understanding recidivism only when their possible meaning in particular individuals is clarified. In a review of violent recidivism, for example, Harris, Rice and Quinsey (1993) suggest that youth, marital status, psychopathy, criminal history, failure of prior conditional release, alcohol use and antisocial conduct in childhood have been demonstrated consistently to be good predictor variables. But what does this mean other than that young, single, impulsive, violent men, particularly when they drink, tend to behave in impulsive and violent ways? Similarly, in relation to men who offend against children, Rice, Quinsey and Harris’s (1991) finding that reoffenders were more likely to have committed more sex offences, have more past prison sentences, suffer from per
