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DISCUSSION Only a minority (35%) of the 224 sex offender recidivists directly established contact with their victims. For those who did, they were much more likely to initiate contact with an adult. But even when offenders contacted juvenile victims directly, it was often more than a mile away from where they lived. Of the few offenders who directly contacted a juvenile victim within close proximity of their residence, none did so near a school, park, playground, or other location included in residential restriction laws. There are several limitations with this study, however, that are worth mentioning. First, as noted earlier, by focusing on the 224 cases resulting in reincarceration, we did not exam- ine the 80 reconvictions and 70 rearrests that took place between 1990 and 2005. Although we found no evidence that housing restrictions would likely have had a deterrent effect on the 224 most serious instances of sexual recidivism, the possibility still remains that they might have an impact on the less serious cases. Second, we did not examine whether the 224 offenders lived near a school, park, or other possible prohibited area at the time of the offense. Thus, there may have been some child molesters examined here who became aroused from living near a location where children congregate but who chose to go to a different location (i.e., more than 1 mile away) to commit the offense. As noted above, however, there were only 3 cases in which the offender established contact with a victim at a possible prohibited area, and 1 involved an adult victim whereas the other 2 were more than 10 miles from the offenders’ residences. Despite these limitations, the results presented here provide very little support for the notion that residency restriction laws would lower the incidence of sexual recidivism, particularly among child molesters. Why, then, does residential proximity appear to matter so little with regard to sexual reoffending? Much of it has to do with the patterns of sexual offending in general. Sex offense rates are generally not related to the number of known sex offenders in a community (Stengel et al., in press). Moreover, sex offenders are much more likely to victimize someone they know. For example, one of the most common victim– offender relationships found in this study was that of a male offender developing a romantic relationship with a woman who has children. The sex offender recidivists examined here used their relationships with these women to gain access to their victims—the women’s children. Similarly, it was relatively common for offenders to gain access to victims through babysitting for an acquaintance or coworker or by living with friends who had children. Thus, in one half of the cases, the offenders established contact with their victims—most of whom were juveniles—through their relationship or acquaintance with another person, almost invariably an adult. Even when offenders established direct contact with victims, they were unlikely to do so close to where they lived. This may be largely because of the fact that offenders are more likely to be recognized within their own neighborhoods. Indeed, many of the child moles- ters whom Levenson and Cotter (2005) interviewed for their study indicated that they were careful not to reoffend close to their own home. As a result, when direct-contact offenders look for a victim, they may be more likely to go to an area relatively close to home (i.e., less than 20 miles) but still far enough away (i.e., greater than 1 mile) to decrease the chances of being recognized. These findings fit with previous research showing that repeat sex offenders typically offend outside their immediate neighborhoods (Canter & Gregory, 1994; Lundrigan & Czarnomski, 2006; Rengert, 2004; Warren et al., 1998). 500 CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR at University of British Columbia Library on April 27, 2010 http://cjb.sagepub.comDownloaded from