The homosexual offenders vs. adults had the smallest percentage of men with records of juvenile convictions: 7.5 per cent. However, nearly all who were convicted were given sentences of six months or longer, indicating that their juvenile offenses, while few, were serious. A comparatively small number (2 per cent) had juvenile sex-offense convictions.
Their convictions as adults mounted at a moderate rate: one third had been convicted by age twenty, one half by twenty-three, three quarters by thirty, and nine out of ten by age forty-nine. In accumulative incidence of convictions that led to imprisonment for six months or more, the percentage also rises moderately until about age thirty, after which the rate drops until ultimately the homosexual offenders vs. adults are the only group of whom less than three fifths had served a six months’ sentence or more.
Their average age when first convicted was about twenty-four, and when first convicted for a homosexual offense the average age was 26.7, somewhat younger than was true of the other homosexual groups.
There is nothing remarkable about the percentage of convictions that stemmed from sex offenses (55 per cent), but the proportion of “pure” sex offenders—men with no offenses other than sex offenses—is the largest recorded: 65 per cent. One may recall that in this particular the homosexual offenders vs. minors ranked second with 62 per cent. A significant proportion of this “purity” is the result of our sampling of homosexual offenders, a large number of whom were interviewed outside prison. This very fact militates against their being frequently involved in criminal activity.
Their nonsex offenses are chiefly ones of vagrancy-disorderly conduct (40 per cent) and crimes against property (35 per cent). The latter figure is moderate compared to many other groups, but the vagrancy-disorderly conduct figure is the third largest recorded, being surpassed only by the other homosexual offenders. The “cruising” and loitering that is so common in male homosexual life predisposes them to such charges.
The homosexual offenders vs. adults are the most specialized of all sex offenders; fully 96 per cent of their offenses are homosexual offenses. Fifty-three per cent of all their offenses other than those with adult males involved boys from twelve to fifteen, 22 per cent involved boys under age twelve, 10 per cent were exhibition (to females), and about 13 per cent involved physical contact with females, including a few daughters.
Recidivism among these offenders was definitely low: 42 per cent had but one conviction. Only the incest offenders vs. adults had a better record. However, a promiscuous hard core of homosexuals accounts for nearly 9 per cent who had seven or more convictions, and 9 per cent in this particular category is a moderate rather than a low figure.
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