Commentary.

• Author: Fedoroff, J. Paul
• Position: Letter to the Editor

Dear Editor,

I would like to provide some clarification about an article that was recently published in the journal (see Langevin, Curnoe, Fedoroff, Bennett, Langevin, Peever, Pettica, and Sandhu 2004). The article was briefly reviewed in the Globe and Mail by Colin Freeze (2004). In the review, Mr. Freeze wrote that "About 90 per cent of pedophiles and other sex offenders re-offend after being caught and released, according to a new study that finds that Canadian officials 'grossly underestimate' the risk they pose."

While it is true that the study in question found that a very high percentage of sex offenders had more than one victim, this does not say anything about the effect of treatment. Of the 351 index patients seen by Dr Langevin at the Clarke Institute from 1966 to 1974, 58.4% were already general recidivists and 25.6% were sex offence recidivists, based on convictions, at the time they were first assessed. This is clearly different from a prospective study in which first offence offenders are followed to see if they re-offend and very different from a study in which men are treated and then followed to determine whether the treatment reduces the rate of recidivism that would be expected if they were not treated.

Freeze also wrote, "The offenders' hospital records ... often included more information, including admissions of guilt for crimes that the criminal-justice system had never picked up on." This is absolutely true and supports what I view as the main finding of the Langevin study, that individuals who commit sexual offences almost always commit more than one offence and they usually do not get caught the first time. This observation cannot be used to argue that treatment is ineffective. In fact, the Langevin paper clearly states that the study was not designed to assess the efficacy of treatment. Nor should it have been. Treatment of sex offenders has undergone three revolutions from the time that the...