Internet sex offending is a rather new class of criminal acts and therefore little is known about previous convictions, recidivsm and especially correlation with hands-on sexual offences. Previous studies on small samples reported an insignificant correlation between previous convictions for child pornography and later contact sex offences on the one hand and an important role of pornography as a risk factor for sexual recidivsm of convicted sexual offenders. As an increasing number of defendants accused of child pornography is assigned for forensic risk assessment, better evidence and understanding of the role and the amount of the influence of child pornography on later offending is most urgently needed.

We therefore explore these correlations by means of the complete set of all offenders convicted of illegal pornography in the Swiss federal crime registry at the time of november 2008. The analysis of 4658 criminal records reveal that 7.9% of the internet sex offenders were at the same time convicted of child abuse. The child molesters with 20.7% recidivated more frequently in general, compared to 9.8% of the offenders who were not convicted of a contact offence. Furthermore, the contact offenders with 11.4% were significant more likely to reoffend in terms of illegal pornography and sexual acts involving children with 6.0%.

We will present all recidivism rates and our conclusions at the conference.