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Canter & Kirby
Prior convictions of child molesters
Science & Justice 35/1 73-78 (1995)
"...if a child molester had previously come to the attention of the criminal
justice system it would be more likely to be for an offence involving
dishonesty than for a prior sexual offence against a child. Further analysis
indicated that of the offenders who had previous criminal convictions, 86%
had a conviction for dishonesty."
from personal e-mail
As Canter & Kirby point out, their data, unlike Abel et al.'s or Elliott et al.'s, "is obtained from a
reliable and properly documented source which is arguably more robust
than relying on an individual's account, which is often non-verifiable
and which can suffer from defects in the offender's memory as well as
his honesty."
Canter & Kirby also make it clear that their results "do not
generally support the hypothesis that serious offenders have
progressed from less serious offences against children." This seems to
be an assumption based not so much on the scientific literature as on
press reports of the early careers of a very few perpetrators of
exceptionally and atypically serious crimes.