ABSTRACT
Efforts to control sexual offending have almost invariably focused on persons who have been convicted of a sex offense. In doing so, however, these efforts have overlooked first-time sexual offending, which accounts for a greater number of sex crimes that occur. This chapter introduces the concept for a risk assessment system that estimates the likelihood of both first-time and repeat sexual offending for correctional populations from the time of their entry into the correctional system and, for many, their eventual exit. After reviewing the existing literature, this chapter delineates what is known about the similarities and differences between first-time and repeat sexual offending. It then concludes by laying out in greater detail what a risk assessment system for the full continuum of sexual offending might look like, including a discussion of its potential advantages and limitations.
