Reply #26: Nevermind that you didn't actually link to a study.

[varkam]

But rather to a politician's website, I can't actually read the study, and so I cannot comment on it's relative strengths or weaknesses. For instance, one question I have is how do they define "pedophile"? Is it one with a DSM-IV diagnosis of pedophilia? Is it one who has molested a child? Are they intra-familial offenders or approach pedophiles? How many subjects were involved in the analysis? Certainly there are sub-groups of offenders that have higher recidivism rates, but 90% seems incredible given all the studies that I have seen. I would be most interested in examining their methodology.

I can, however, again point you out to the CSOM (which is not a site with any political axes to grind). Again, they have meta-analyses on their website (that focus on child molesters) that seem to contradict your claims.

Edited to add: I decided to google the study to see if I could at least get ahold of an abstract. Quite by accident, I found this:

A recently published article by Langevin, Curnoe, Fedoroff, Bennett, Langevin, Peever, Pettica, and Sandhu (2004) reports a recidivism rate of 88.3% for sex offenders. A detailed analysis of the study demonstrates that this unusually high level is uninterpretable because the offenders whose criminal careers were followed are unlikely to be representative of sex offenders in general. Furthermore, the measure of recidivism used in the study not only distorts the normal meaning of recidivism but also artefactually creates an inflated – and consequently meaningless – recidivism rate.

They are commenting on the study that you are referring to.

Link