The Future of Sex Offense Courts: How Expanding Specialized Sex Offense Courts Can Help Reduce Recidivism and Improve Victim Reporting

Authors

Catharine Richmond, University of Virginia School of Law
Melissa Richmond, The George Washington University Law School

Abstract

Specialty sex offense courts are a nascent judicial innovation that seek to improve general public safety by reducing recidivism. Decreased recidivism results from swifter, personalized, experienced, and consistent judicial action that encourages sex offenders to take more responsibility and seek rehabilitative assistance. In these specialized courts, communities of stakeholders work collaboratively to prevent future crime. Although somewhat counterintuitive, specialty courts that offer such intensive and specific attention are often more cost effective and efficient than their traditional counterparts are. This Article posits that sex offense courts should be expanded beyond the handful of jurisdictions where they currently exist, not only to reduce recidivism, but also to potentially increase victim reporting. Although current statistics are imperfect, they uniformly suggest that victim reporting is low; this may be, in part, because victims often know their attackers and are reluctant to subject them to the criminal justice system with its harsh sex offense penalties, some of which, like registries, are essentially irreversible. Expansion of sex offense courts would allow incubation of new processes that could further reduce recidivism and increase victim reporting

Disciplines

Courts | Judges | Law | Law and Politics | Legislation

Recommended Citation

Catharine Richmond & Melissa Richmond, The Future of Sex Offense Courts: How Expanding Specialized Sex Offense Courts Can Help Reduce Recidivism and Improve Victim Reporting, 21 Cardozo J. Equal Rts. & Soc. Just. 443 (2015).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/cardozoersj/vol21/iss2/5