Two commonly researched topics surrounding sexual offending are recidivism and specialization. The widely-accepted belief that sex offenders recidivate at a higher rate than other offenders, in conjunction with the misconception that sex offenders specialize in purely sexual crimes, while ignoring the likelihood of their involvement in general criminality, has compelled policymakers to enact legislation with extremely harsh sanctions.

This thesis seeks to measure the accuracy of the aforementioned perceptions through an analysis of the non-sex crimes for which a sample of 229 registered sex offenders are currently incarcerated in the state of Kentucky. The primary focus of the current study is to explore the heterogeneity of sex offenders as a whole, by assessing the differences in criminal behavior and offender characteristics of sex offenders that are currently incarcerated for non-sex violent and non-sex nonviolent offenses.

The results of the bivariate analysis suggested that the following variables were significantly different between those sex offenders with a nonviolent non-sex offense and those with a violent non-sex offense: offender age, race, victim age, registration violation, multiple victims, and sex offense severity. Furthermore, the multivariate analysis revealed that sex offenders with a victim under the age of 18 and with a registration violation are less likely to be violent offenders, and that those sex offenders with multiple victims are more likely to be violent offenders. Study limitations and the implications of these findings with regard to registration and community notification policies are also discussed.