The majority of research on rape myth acceptance (RMA) has been reported from a largely North American and European perspective. While this has certainly advanced our understanding of the area, generalising the experiences of western populations fails to take into account the sociocultural factors that are embedded in the realities of sexual violence across non-western societies. This thesis aims to examine RMA in non-western countries. Following the Introduction, a systematic review of the existing literature on the demographic and attitudinal factors associated with RMA in adults in non-western societies (Asia, Africa, Latin America, and the Middle East) is presented. The results are consistent with western findings, however, the paucity of available research in non-western societies indicates a need for further research. In the next chapter, an empirical study contributes to this limited evidence base by exploring the relationship between RMA and a number of demographic and attitudinal factors, using a sample population of men and women from Jamaica. Participants’ RMA was measured using the Acceptance of Modern Myths about Sexual Aggression (AMMSA; Gerger et al., 2007). The AMMSA was appraised in terms of its psychometric properties in the penultimate chapter and was considered to be an appropriate choice of psychometric instrument for the study. The final chapter draws the thesis together by discussing the main findings and implications for future research and practice.

The aim of this thesis was to explore the contribution of attachment theory to the understanding of sexual offending behaviour. The introduction chapter is followed by a systematic literature review (Chapter 2), exploring whether child abusers and rapists differ in attachment style. Chapter 3 investigated the psychometric properties of the Attachment Style Interview (ASI; Bifulco, Moran, Ball, & Bernazzani, 2002). This semi-structured interview demonstrated satisfactory reliability and validity. Chapter 4 consists of an empirical study using a mixed-methods approach to explore the attachment styles of adolescent sex offenders. The Attachment Style Interview for Adolescents (Bifulco, 2012) was used to investigate whether there is a relationship between attachment style and offender status (child abusers, peer abusers). The quantitative results supported the hypotheses that child abusers are more likely to be anxiously attached; whereas peer abusers are more likely to be avoidantly attached. The qualitative results further explored what participants valued in relationships with others, and what represented as barriers for them to make and maintain relationships. The final chapter summarises the findings and implications for practice of this thesis. Overall, this thesis highlights that sex offenders are a heterogeneous group, whose needs are complex and go beyond their sexually harmful behaviours.

The complexities of the developmental, cognitive, and neurobiological aspects of sexual offending pose a challenge to those working with convicted sexual offenders. This thesis aims to contribute to the evidence of the links between neurobiology and the practice of mindfulness, to established theories of early abuse and sexual offending. A systematic review of the literature explored differences between sexual offenders with child or adult victims to isolate affective or neurobiological differences. The outcome suggested that neurobiological evidence should be considered as a factor. The Affective Neuroscience Personality Scale (Davis, Panksepp & Normansell, 2003; Davis & Panksepp, 2011) and the Cognitive and Affective Mindfulness Scale-Revised (Feldman, Hayes, Kumar, Greeson & Laurenceau, 2007) indicated utility within this population. Affect and mindfulness did not differ significantly between the two offending groups. Mindfulness correlated positively with measures of positive affect in offenders. Both groups differed from non-offending norms on affect scales linked to social interaction and autonomy. A lack of positive affect was more notable than increased negative affect among sexual offenders. This outcome is consistent with theories of early attachment, suggesting a deficit in positive affect may provide a link to reduced social interaction, autonomy, and subsequent sexual offending.

This thesis investigates the debate around sex offender treatment efficacy. Numerous methods are utilised to explore this topic, including a meta-analysis (N =15,931), empirical research (N =322) and a single case study. Chapter 1 reviews the efficacy of sex offender treatment in relation to study design, treatment type, and treatment setting. Results indicate a positive effect of treatment in reducing both sexual and general recidivism for treated versus untreated offenders. However, treatment effects varied greatly according to the study design used, with no significant effect of treatment found for randomised controlled trials. Within Chapter 2, survival analysis and logistic regression are used to examine the impact of treatment dose (‘Risk Principle’) on reconviction and within-treatment change. Results indicate that whilst controlling for Risk Matrix 2000 (Thornton, Mann, Webster, Blud, Travers, Friendship & Erikson, 2003) classification, treatment dose does not influence treatment outcome. The results are discussed in light of the need to consider the way that sexual offenders interact with the amount of treatment received. Chapter 3 uses a single case design to explore assessment and low-dose intervention with an internet offender. The case study explores practice based issues, including the difficulty in applying pre-existing knowledge of contact sexual offenders to internet offenders. Chapter 4 provides a critique of Risk Matrix 2000 (Thornton et al., 2003). Chapter 5 discusses the practical and theoretical implications of this thesis, explores limitations of the thesis, and provides recommendations for future research.

Mass ethnic violence, including genocide and ethnic cleansing, can take a variety of forms, but sexual violence often remains a key and defining feature. In the Bosnian war of 1992-1995 following the break-up of Yugoslavia, it is estimated that between 20,000 and 60,000 rapes were committed; and estimates are that between 250,000 and 500,000 rapes were committed during the Rwandan genocide in 1994. And yet the experiences and needs of these survivors of sexual violence can often remain marginalised through post-conflict reconstruction processes and beyond. Drawing on ethnographic and multi-method research, this dissertation explores and contrasts the post-conflict experiences of women who suffered from wartime sexual violence in Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina and the programmes offered by key NGOs that continue to work with them. Focusing on policies and experiences of re-integration and the creation of a sense of social belonging, I show that these women represent a distinct category of civilian victims of war, whose postconflict needs and experiences are often marginalized by both their states and their communities. The thesis’ empirical core draws on ethnographic fieldwork, which included participant observation of ten key NGOs, four focus groups with HIV-infected individuals and women survivors of sexual violence, semi-structured and unstructured interviews with 17 survivors, 23 NGO staff and a Rwandan government representative, as well as informal conversations with all of these actors and members of the local communities. This ethnographic data was complemented and contextualized with official statistics, as well as government and NGO documents, and with interviews conducted at UN Women and the UN Trust Fund. The main substantive findings of this dissertation are that following the end of the ethnic violence in Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina, the two states embarked on very different post-conflict reconstruction efforts. Rwanda has been characterized by an important process of nation-building, with the state outlawing ethnicity in favour of national unity, and implementing gender-sensitive policies to promote women’s rights. In contrast, the Bosnian-Herzegovinian state implemented policies mostly geared towards state-building, based on the rationale that the institutionalisation of ethnicity could only truly be accommodated through strong state institutions. The dominance of ethnic politics however overshadows other political agendas, such as gender policies, policies that have still not lead to transformative changes at the local level. These macro-policies importantly influence post-conflict experiences, most especially those of women who had survived sexual violence. My findings are suggestive of the complexity of the post-conflict experiences of the women I met, mostly in terms of social reintegration, where the macro-policies of post-conflict reconstruction continue to powerfully shape both their everyday lives and the work done by the NGOs. In Rwanda today, the women I interviewed mostly wish to be fully socially accepted and treated as part of their communities, with the NGOs offering them holistic support. But in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the women I interviewed today mostly demand legal recognition by the state, with the NGOs actively lobbying for this on their behalf. And yet, due to a shared experience of continuing everyday marginalization within both societies, as civilian victims of war, in both places the women often rely on NGOs to negotiate their social position within their states, nations and communities. This mediation role is structurally complicated by the NGOs’ relationships to donors and to the pressures of the state in which they operate. The impact of this is that through their mediation role NGOs reconstruct the women’s experiences in order to align with the priorities of the international donors and states in which they operate. Consequently, the contrasts between the work done by NGOs in each country are clearly visible, despite the similarity of the war crimes experienced: Rwandan NGOs actively seek to increase women’s empowerment within their social community, while the Bosnian NGOs actively aim to increase the women’s voices within more explicit political agendas. The thesis’s key theoretical or intellectual contribution, therefore, concerns its relevance to intersectional scholarly work on post-conflict and gender studies. More specifically, my findings suggest that a shift occurred immediately following the end of the armed conflicts, where the women who had experienced wartime sexual violence and who were socially located outside the scope of justice of their ethnic enemies, suddenly found themselves outside the scope of justice of their own ethnic or national communities. Extending Mann’s (2004) and Opotow et al’s (2005) typologies of ethnic violence and moral exclusion, I then develop a specific framework for understanding the underlying moral shifts experienced by the survivors of sexual violence. In doing this, I seek to capture this gendered moral and social relocation and its consequences on the everyday lives of the women and the NGOs that work with them. This forms the basis for my theoretical contribution that the women moved from ethnic women to moral outcasts in the aftermath of the ethnic violence, and that this exclusion is contextually shaped since the priorities for social reintegration are different in Rwanda to BiH. Addressing these priorities then requires different forms of post-conflict inclusion.

Despite the heightened focus on the effects of war on girls, they are still being inappropriately grouped under the larger rubric of ‘women’ or ‘females’. Since the distinctions in girls’ and women’s war experiences are not yet well understood (McKay, 2006), this research argues that gender analysis is crucial to effective development as it relates to young soldiers. It also advocates a distinct analytical focus on girls who exit armed forces as young women (at times as a result of having children). This thesis is about formerly abducted girls in Acholi sub region, northern Uganda. As adolescents and teenagers, they were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army and many returned to their villages with children fathered by the fighters. This thesis systematically looks at their socio-economic reintegration process, experiences and progress over the years. Through a series of 57 in-depth and 12 group interviews, this qualitative study explores long-term reintegration from the participants’ perspectives. The study identifies and analyses the central themes in their lives, including: physical and mental scars of abduction and life in captivity, stigmatisation, marriage complexities, and economic hardships. To date, the growing body of reintegration literature has focused on the first one or two years after exiting an armed group, and long-term reintegration studies are still limited. Therefore, through these themes, the thesis contributes to the conceptualisation of reintegration and understanding of the participants’ past and current life situations.

It is today commonly acknowledged that rape is a weapon of war. This consensus has been achieved in significant part through the efforts of feminist scholars and activists. Yet the consensus hides a multiplicity of ways in which weapons of war might function. This thesis uncovers and critically explores that variety. First, it turns to questions of what makes a form of inquiry specifically feminist, the better to understand the foundations for claims about rape as a weapon of war. Having offered a critique of existing divisions of empiricist, standpoint and postmodern feminisms (and of the distinction between feminism and gender theory), the thesis proposes a view of feminism as critical explanation: as at once explanatory, political and ethical inquiry. These view is expanded on through a framework of modes of critical explanation: styles of reasoning that provide analytical wagers, narrative scripts and normative orientations for feminist inquiry. Second, the thesis explores three such modes of critical explanation in relation to wartime sexual violence. It argues that the modes of instrumentality, unreason and mythology implicitly structure feminist claims about war rape. Each is examined in turn, with particular attention to how the forms of explanation mirror debates found in war studies and in social theory more generally. Each mode is clarified and expanded on, resulting in sets of propositions for each mode and in a clearer sense of where modes contradict each other and where they may combine. Third, this meta-theoretical and theoretical framework is applied to the specific case of atrocity in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. Working through several kinds of empirical material (studies of sexual violence, histories of conflict in the Great Lakes, data on economic dimensions of violence and testimony from combatants and ex-combatants on the topic of sexual violence), the thesis shows how 'the rape capital of the world' is best understood in terms of themes derived from the modes of unreason and mythology. It explores retaliatory atrocity, extractive sexual violence and fragmented sexual aggression as three situated dynamics of violence. This part thus critiques a narrowly instrumentalist idea of wartime sexual violence as a strategy of profiteering, whilst also attending to how economic dimensions matter in the war complex as a whole. The conclusion draws out consequences for further work, especially in relation to a comparative project for the critical explanation of wartime sexual violence.

The pimp serves as an iconic ghetto hero who stands in street cultures as a figure that represents defiance, anti-establishment angst, and victorious criminality (Funches & Marriott 2002; Horton-Stallings, 2003). The American pimp has been brought into mainstream American culture through 1960’s literature, 1970’s Blaxploitation films, 1980’s hip hop and more recently, documentaries, films, books, music and television. The word ‘pimp’ has found its way into mainstream usage and popular caricatures of the pimp can be found in everything from Halloween costumes to ‘pimp and ho’ themed college parties. Despite being highly visible within mainstream culture, this character is still enigmatic as pimps are an underresearched population. Thus this thesis aims to uncover and unveil the lives and experiences of pimps involved in illegal prostitution to produce a more panoramic understanding of prostitution and an unexplored segment of major players within it. This thesis investigates the experiences and narratives of pimps involved in illegal, predominately street, prostitution in the USA. This research project stands to offer in-depth insight into the experiences of pimps in the United States within this unique subcultural context. In order to fill that literature gap, this research interviewed pimps and gathered data that explored how and why individuals become pimps, their personal histories, how they maintain their position as pimps, how pimps pimp, and the motivations for exit and/or retirement from The Game (the world of prostitution and pimping). More than just a managerial position, the role of the pimp also embraces a lifestyle with special rules, fashions and activities that create a unique and complex underground, criminal community. Rather than just presenting pimps as violent exploiters or ghetto heroes, this thesis examined the language of pimping, their orientation to their roles, the relationship between pimping and the surrounding communities and mainstream society, and explored this criminal career as a social role as well as career. With their childhood experiences of life in American ghettos leading to regular exposure to pimps and favorable impressions of illicit, underground careers, respondents came to ‘choose’ pimping as their career trajectory in their teens. Once dedicated to becoming pimps, many pimps underwent training with older pimps and later gained acceptance within the street community to earn their positions and status as pimps. When established within The Game, they started to practice ‘pimpology’ (pimp ideology) and to firmly establish their skills and methods of pimping. Two substantive chapters within this thesis are dedicated to addressing pimpology: pimpology covers the core processes, social connections and methods of management that are vital for a pimps success and survival in The Game. The aim of these chapters is to explore how pimps function as individuals, with the women who work for them, within their peer networks, and within their communities while they are actively pimping. And finally, exit from pimping will be explored. Issues such as age, exhaustion, family, health, drug addiction, trauma, imprisonment, law enforcement crackdowns and social betrayal all also act as further incentives for pimps to ‘hang up their pimp hat.’ This research has uncovered new themes and trends within the narratives of this hidden, underground subcultural population and offers great insights into the ‘career cycles’ of pimps. This project stands to fill a major gap within prostitution research as current literature lacks the perspectives and voices of pimps themselves. Within this research, a nuanced approach offers a unique view of the pimp and their complex roles and relationships within The Game. As an understudied population, pimps have rarely been the focus of academic inquiry; thus this research stands to contribute new perspectives, insights and data on a population that has remained enigmatic and well hidden from academic exploration for decades.

This thesis deploys both qualitative and quantitative methods to explore the role and meanings of violence within the context of Sussex and Kent in the early part of the eighteenth century. Historians have often approached the topic of violence from the perspective of a history of crime and therefore deviance. The focus has frequently been on measurements of levels and has ignored cultural contexts. In contrast, this research is grounded in experiences of violence demonstrating that it is not a uniform concept and includes a wide variety of behaviours from brawls to murder. By drawing on a range of sources it has been possible to allow the ritual and meaning of violent actions to be explored in detailed context. Quantitative data is taken from the quarter sessions records of both counties and analysed alongside the interpretations of previous historians. This is supplemented with depositions, literature, letters and notebooks to provide a ‘thick description’ of the contexts and circumstances of violence. The experience of violence is explored from a range of angles and at several levels, from anonymous brawls in the street to gang violence to household chastisement, the ritual and meaning of violent actions is investigated in detail. This analysis demonstrates that violence was a subjective concept, dependent on context. No clear definition of violence can be found, instead there are a range of descriptions, portrayals and accounts which all combine to illustrate the plurality of this concept. This thesis concludes that violence was often meaningful and connected with cultural concepts of order, authority and community. It was not random and its purpose can often be found if the signs are read. Evidence for struggles over authority and power can frequently be found as the basis of violent disputes and this can be found at the household, community and county level. This thesis demonstrates how violence was regulated through both formal and informal methods involving concepts of legitimacy and acceptability, as although violence was defined legally the border between legitimate or acceptable and illegitimate and unacceptable was blurred and contested.

The history of international human trafficking law suggests that the trafficking of women for prostitution is a not a new phenomenon. The earliest approach to address the problem was founded on a moral ground but adopted a law enforcement strategy by criminalising the procurement of women for prostitution. Consequently consent at the time was discountenanced in favour of the end purpose for which the women were moved. This approach prevailed over a long period until the adoption of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Trafficking Protocol) in 2000. The Trafficking Protocol adopts a three thronged (prevention, protection and prosecution) approach to combating human trafficking. Whilst this is a novel approach the Trafficking Protocol makes consent irrelevant only when the movement of the women is procured through coercion. Accordingly consent or lack of consent became an essential element for distinguishing trafficking from other migratory crimes such as human smuggling. The challenge of applying consent as criterion to differentiate human trafficking from human smuggling particularly becomes problematical when applied to the movement of women for prostitution. This is especially so in the light of feminists’ debate on whether prostitution should be conceptualised as sex work or as violence against women. To establish consent or lack of consent in the context of the Trafficking Protocol is complicated, inexhaustive framing of the consent nullifying elements ignores country specific and cultural practices in recruitment of women for prostitution. This thesis demonstrates the complexity of using consent as a criterion to determine whether Nigerian women moved into Italy are trafficked or voluntary agents. In doing so the thesis highlights the extent to which the interpretation of consent may be influenced by social, cultural and socio-legal issues. This thesis accentuate juju oath ritual and debt bondage as frequently employed to recruit and move Nigerian women into prostitution as consent nullifying elements.