Interpersonal violence is a subject of particular concern to society. Although many theories exist about the social organisation of violence, relatively little has been written about the interpersonal processes that are at work in the act of violence of perpetrator on victim, or about the different forms that violent action can take. Two specified forms of aggression are investigated in this thesis using instruments that examine mental representations of attachment and interpersonal functioning. The sample chosen is that of mentally disordered offenders and the forms of violence are sexual violence and interpersonal violence without sexual motivation. A multi-level approach is used to examine the attachments and object relations of violent and sexual offenders, using interview based methodologies, repertory grid and questionnaire methods. The primary emphasis is upon the persons' reported experiences of themselves, their primary caretakers, and others. In addition, the capacity of violent and sexual offenders to reflect on their own and others' minds, and to differentiate between self and other (including key object relationships and victim) are examined. There is some support for the prediction that there will be differences in the expression of attachments and interpersonal relating between offenders who commit sexual violence when compared to those who commit non sexual violence. There is also support for the approach of using measures from different theoretical traditions to bring a richer perspective on interpersonal functioning.

This research involves a case study of specialist child abuse investigators within a public protection unit within the Police Service of Northern Ireland. The research seeks to determine how the detectives learnt to apply human rights as a result of participation in the specialist child abuse investigators' development programme. The research adopts a more comprehensive examination of human rights than that adopted in traditional legalistic approaches to human rights evaluation. The research incorporates analysis through Aristotelian virtue ethics to gain a more comprehensive understanding of human rights inclusion. An analytical tool was developed and used to examine legalistic and virtue ethic inclusion within distance learning and formal classroom elements of the course. Data gathering entailed semi-structured interviews with 8 practitioners who had completed the course and 8 stakeholders who are in a unique position within the PSNI to enable them to comment on how human rights were learnt and applied by the child abuse investigators. A case study utilizing a grounded approach was used to generate the neoAristotelian virtue ethic analysis theory, which outlines that the use of neo-Aristotelian virtue ethics can greatly assist in describing how specialist child abuse investigators learn to apply human rights. The research also identifies three categorizations of virtue ethic engagement. These focus on the importance of moral virtues for practitioners, the importance of intellectual virtues and the centrality of justice. The research makes recommendations concerning how human rights should be considered within the training cycle and highlights characteristics of an emergent human rights pedagogy.

Within the last decade, much effort has been made by the United Arab Emirates (hereafter the UAE) to tackle the problem of human trafficking, particularly of women. The UAE government has attempted to achieve a balance among the three areas of the prevention of root causes of trafficking, the prosecution and punishment of human traffickers and the protection of rights of trafficked women. In practice, however, the UAE government mainly focuses on criminal justice aspects of trafficking, as many of its anti-trafficking measures and policies have been directed towards enhancing the UAE's efforts to prosecute traffickers, and prevent the crime through border control measures, and raising awareness among law enforcement agencies and officers. The protection of the rights of trafficked women and the addressing of socioeconomic, political and legal conditions that may increase migrant women's vulnerability to trafficking have received little attention. This thesis aims to determine whether the UAE's current anti-trafficking measures and policies to address and solve the problem of trafficking of women are effective, and if they are not, how these measures can be improved.

This study used the concept of everyday multiculturalism to explore how young White British people interpret, negotiate and engage with diversity and ‘difference’ in Leicester. Young people’s views and experiences were captured through employing an ethnographic strategy which facilitated observations, informal conversations and interviews, documenting auto-ethnographical experiences and questionnaire completion. The findings illustrate that the majority of young White British people living in Leicester view multiculturalism, in its ideological form, as being positive for England. However, when the sample was asked to reflect upon their own ‘everyday’ experiences of engaging with people from different backgrounds, the lived reality appears quite different. The findings demonstrate that the ways in which young people encounter and interact with diversity in mundane social spaces can be undermined by fear, prejudice and hostility. At its most extreme this unfamiliarity with ‘difference’ can motivate young people to actively disengage with the multicultural population around them. The intolerance and resentment towards ‘difference’ can be understood as the result of an interplay between socio-economic status frustration, a heightened importance of identity and place to certain groups of young people and the micro-multicultural context. Finally, this study used the concept of everyday multiculturalism to understand the motivation and causation of acts of targeted hostility, incidents in which the victim is selected on the basis of their perceived ethnicity or religion. This study demonstrates that incorporating the concept of everyday multiculturalism within existing theoretical explanations of targeted hostility, achieves a more sophisticated understanding of the real-life situational cues and contexts which give rise to acts of targeted hostility. It is only through a closer engagement with the real lives of young people that a more empirically rooted understanding of targeted hostility can be achieved, and more effective policy and practice recommendations can be developed.

This study was to designed, in two parts, to investigate: 1. Whether the attributions about sexually abusive behaviour, made by staff in learning disabilities services, differed according to whether or not the perpetrator had a learning disability, and if these attributions served to hinder the identification, acknowledgement and reporting of sexually abusive behaviour performed by men with learning disabilities. 2. The number of clients referred to therapists in learning disabilities services, over a two year period, for sexually abusive behaviour, client and offence characteristics, and the referral process. Information was sought regarding therapists' perceived reasons for delayed referrals, and the impact this had on ease of treatment. A questionnaire employing vignettes was constructed to measure staff attributions, about offenders and their behaviour, on dimensions of impulsivity, level of understanding, sexual motivation, and the extent to which behaviour was influenced by the victim, and other personal and external factors. Results of the questionnaire were analysed using ANOVA. Significant differences in staff responses were found on all measures. Results suggest that peoples' perceptions of the perpetrator with a learning disability are less likely to invoke attributions of responsibility and blame and thus may serve to hinder the identification, acknowledgement and reporting of abusive behaviour. The results of the survey of therapists indicate that clients referred for sexually abusive behaviours share similar offence characteristics with offenders in the general population in terms of the range of behaviours exhibited, and multiple offending. These results also show that most referrals to therapists are delayed, and that the delay is . perceived to be due to staff not considering the behaviour to be 'primarily sexual' in nature, and 'excusing' the behaviour because of the individual's learning disability or 'other' personal characteristics. Links between the two parts of the study are drawn and these and other findings are discussed in relation to practice and implications for future research.

The Trafficking of Nepalese women to various parts of India for sexual purposes has a long history and is an extremely sensitive issue. Despite the focus by non governmental organisations and various plans being formulated by the Nepalese government to ameliorate the problem of trafficking of women, the situation of returnee trafficked women is largely unknown. Analysis of the lived experiences of Nepalese trafficked women shows that trafficking is linked with gender, migration, poverty, work, sex, money, power and violence. Women may be able to escape trafficking physically; however legal and social labelling of women continues to affect all aspects of their lives. These labels are linked with the women’s perceived sexuality and build on sexual trauma and violence the women encounter in trafficking. After leaving trafficking settings these processes of social labelling often negatively characterise women as ‘bad women’, as morally and socially degraded and/or as a criminals responsible for HIV/AIDS transmission. Trafficked women are eventually blamed for bringing ‘shame’ to their families and society at large. These consequences are not desirable, but are imposed by Nepalese society, and contribute to various forms of samajik bahiskar (social rejection) enforced on women on their return disqualifying them from achieving the formal citizenship that they are entitled to. This samajik bahiskar sets trafficked women apart from other women and prevents them taking part in religious ceremonies within the family and communities; setting up businesses and cooperatives; accessing services and resources for example health, education, daily wages and legal assistance, and receiving skills training. This study examines the processes and consequences of samajik bahiskar experienced by trafficked women in Nepal and how these processes interact with the socio-cultural context of Nepal from the perspectives of trafficked women who have returned from various trafficking settings in Nepal and India. This study also explores the contexts in which women are stigmatised, labels are attributed to them, samajik bahiskar is constructed, the consequences are experienced and tactics and strategies employed by trafficked to resist samajik bahiskar in the cultural context that women have returned to.

The purpose of this study is to provide a critical analysis of current trafficking prevention measures by combining a theoretical emphasis on human rights with an empirical, lived-experience research approach. Empirical evidence is used to illuminate the relevance, appropriateness and potential power of the human rights based approach to trafficking prevention. I start with the fact that existing literature places trafficking within the migration, criminal justice, and women's rights discourse. There are also several attempts to place trafficking within a wider human rights debate but this approach has not been fully explored, especially within the prevention framework. My premise is that a human rights framework, based on principles or social justice and cosmopolitanism, which is agency driven rather then victim centred provides an ideal platform for preventing trafficking in human beings. The research provides <l comprehensive analysis of the different types of prevention measures currently in practice (based mainly on political ideology), followed by an analysis of how these ore perceived by Moldovan migrants who have travelled abroad in search or employment within the timeframe 200()-20 1 O. It looks into a number of policy areas around trafficking which are linked to migration, women's rights and prostitution, organised crime, human rights and social justice, examines responses from on the ground organisations doing preventative work, and juxtaposes them to the migrant life stories. The theoretical framework of the thesis is intertwined throughout with empirical evidence to outline the most important concepts used in the research. The main finding of the study is that current trafficking prevention measures do not go far enough in addressing root causes of world inequalities and discrimination such as unfair distribution of resources, the legacy of the slave trade and colonisation, and the North-South divide. This could however be achieved by incorporating a pro-active social justice approach which prioritises and pluralises rights and makes it the responsibility of multiple actors (not just the state or the civil society) to ensure the delivery of these rights.

In an attempt to explain why some mild mannered individuals commit extremely assaultive offences, Megargee (1966) has suggested that two personality types exist among extremely assaultive offenders, the undercontrolled who lack inhibitions against the expression of aggression and the overcontrolled who possess excessive inhibitions against such behaviour. Moderately assaultive offenders, however, are more likely to be composed soley of undercontrolled personalities according to Megargee's Theory of Control. The current study began by carrying out a cluster analysis of MMPI profiles of individuals convicted of homicide. Profile types remarkably similar to those obtained by Blackburn (l97l) from 'abnormal' homicides at Broadmoor were obtained which appeared to represent two broad categories of overcontrolled and undercontrolled individuals. A second cluster analysis of MMPI profiles from a random group of predominantly non-violent prisoners revealed, however, similar types. The results of a cluster analysis of WI profiles of non-criminals also challenged Megargee's theory as a profile type was produced which was similar to that found amongst extremely assaultive offenders, and which had previously been described as overcontrolled. The suggestion was made that 'controlled' was a more appropriate term than 'overcontrolled' and the validity of a controlled-undercontrolled typology was examined by contrasting controlled and undercontrolled homicides on a variety of background, intellectual, behavioural and attitudinal variables. In general support was found for the typology, particularly on prison oriented behavioural measures. The implications of the findings for the control and treatment of controlled and undercontrolled prisoners were discussed and a short MMPI scale which discriminated between these groups was developed, and tentatively named the Undercontrolled Personality Scale.

Child neglect as a form of child maltreatment has no standard definition nor is it associated with any particular research methodology. This study explores the impact of understanding child neglect in general practice with an initial study aim to address a research gap, that is, knowledge of a subject that is not formally taught and given scant attention in contemporary general practice. In doing so I looked beyond the boundaries of the profession and the immediate reception of constituted knowledge towards child neglect's social context and its historical aspects. Reading around the texts of child neglect, the research direction began to embrace the principles of a mixed methodology. This enabled an exploration of child neglect meaning from a number of perspectives in order to build a bigger picture of this complex abstract entity. Mixed methods research has been increasingly used in health but is infrequently employed in the context of general practice. A dialectic stance within m ixed methods in this study was developed as the positivist findings of a structured questionnaire were integrated with strongly interpretive in depth interviews with GPs, focus group work and historical textual analysis inspired by a Habermasian framework. Habermas's treatise of communicative action and knowledge interests provide the philosophical background to justify the methodology employed within this thesis. As a real world evaluation of an abstract concept this study addresses three research questions regarding mechanisms of knowledge acquisition, consensus and disagreement of child neglect in general practice and its situated meaning within its socio-historical context and relevance to contemporary general practice. All are considered within a mixed methodology that is generative of unique findings over and above single methods in a "spiralling manner" (Greene, 2008) which would not have been possible with single methods alone. This creates new and synergis within the methodology through conceptualisation, data integration and research dialogue, but is dependent on simultaneous processes of "methodological" and "conceptual integration" (Day, Sammons & Gu, 2008). Findings suggest that looking beyond the limits of normative assumptions of child neglect meaning is vital if we are to move forward in a holistic approach to ameliorate the effects of neglect and the practical requirements of accomplishing such a task. This is a suitable theoretical concern where child neglect appears to be discursively constructed today as stable ideological notions that are paralleled in historical texts of child neglect. This represents a process where neglected children have been regarded as a separate class who are consistently viewed through the lens of poverty and parental addictions. These continue to shape society's understanding of it today, because there remain unresolved tensions in the explanation of child neglect to establishing its multifaceted dime nsions alongside a simultaneous reduction of meaning. Parton (2009) describes this dilemma as the "social" being "overshadowed" by the requirements of an increasingly technological "informational" child protection system. However, the research conclusions are drawn from a single study of one real-world evaluation of a complex phenomenon, but its findings of convergence and divergence within the discipline of mixed methods would suggest that more scholarship is required to explore the issues raised within this thesis.

This research has sought to explore the theoretical context of community treatment programmes for those convicted of sexual offences against children in the United Kingdom. The aim was also to explore the application of this theoretical framework to one such programme run by a probation service. The research was longitudinal employing a combination of methodological techniques. Psychometric testing and Ninety seven depth interviews were employed with a small group of offenders over a period of four years in order to explore the impact of the programme. Offender accounts of offence circumstance were compared to victim statements and other records; semi-structured interviews were undertaken with practitioners. A review of the literature regarding the historical and legislative context of work with child sexual abusers and the validity of the theoretical framework guiding cognitive behavioural work was undertaken. The research largely supports the theoretical basis of such work. The findings suggest that child sexual abusers; have a tendency to attribute blame to offence circumstances and victims; probably have enduring low self esteem from childhood; tend to be socially isolated both in childhood and in adulthood, and are often ostracised by family and friends as a consequence of their offending; experience problematic relations with others from an early age; are likely to be emotionally, physically or sexually abused as children. The treatment programme was successful in addressing blame attribution, there was greater congruence between victim and offender accounts of offence circumstance at the end of the research. Government legislation for this offender group has become increasingly punitive, seeking simultaneously to monitor and control, with no provision for therapeutic work on termination of a probation order or custodial sentence.