It is a common belief among law enforcement and prosecutors that serial sex offenders maintain a consistent modus operandi (MO), or offending pattern. Show moreIt is a common belief among law enforcement and prosecutors that serial sex offenders maintain a consistent modus operandi (MO), or offending pattern. The standard investigative practices in many law enforcement agencies are to either investigate a sexual assault allegation as an isolated event or use the offender’s MO to link other sexual assaults possibly committed by that offender. However, recent research from the Cuyahoga County Sexual Assault Kit research team at Case Western Reserve University is calling this practice into question.
In our recently published paper in the Journal of Criminal Justice “Offending patterns for serial sex offenders identified via the DNA testing of previously unsubmitted sexual assault kits,” we present findings showing that serial sex offenders frequently assault both strangers and nonstrangers, and often drastically vary their MO across assaults.
In this paper, we discuss our findings and why these findings contradict standard practices for investigating sexual assault, provide recommendations for changing how law enforcement investigates sexual assault based on these findings, and include a discussion of the larger implications of this research for collecting and testing kits and following up on the results of the testing. Show less
