This thesis has explored the sexual offence crime investigation and risk management domains' from two interacting perspectives. It considered both the role and behaviour of the offender and the role and decision making of the investigator. The common theme was how can policing create a more balanced view of risk using evidenced based decisions. From a data set of 154 serial sexual offenders three questions were asked: what are the pathways of offending?' Do sexual offenders escalate? Do they specialise? Four pathways were derived as escalation, oscillation, maintenance and de-escalation; escalation was found in 13% of the offenders. The second part of the thesis then tested the decisions investigators made in a serial sexual offence scenario with an added stressor of time pressure. The results suggested that investigators did not make bad decision but omitted to make some important decisions. Furthermore, experience and intelligence acted as moderators of time pressure. The next part of the thesis considered a contemporary policing issue in terms of sexual offenders and resource decisions. What is the likelihood of an offender possessing indecent images of children (HOC) being a contact child sexual offender. The chapter compared a group of child sexual offenders who possessed HOC and a group of non-contact HOC possessing offenders. Contact and non-contact offenders could be discriminated by criminal convictions, access to children and the severity level of HOC possessed. More sadistic contact offenders possessed higher levels of HOC. The applications to policing knowledge bases were outlined. The findings were considered in terms of the contributions to psychological and criminological literature with two new models of decision making and sexual offending presented.

This thesis is a feminist response to the question: What is the difference between sex and sexual violation? It explores the boundary between sexual conduct that is legitimate, acceptable, ethical or morally permissible on the one hand and sexual violation on the other, and considers how that boundary might be represented within the criminal law. It opens with a critique of the current legal construction of sex and sexual violation. This is followed by a rethinking of the values and risks that give sexual activity meaning, drawing on a recent strand of feminist legal scholarship taking in the work of Drucilla Cornell, Jennifer Nedelsky; Nicola Lacey and Sharon Cowan. This reorientation of the values that ought to underpin sexual offences laws leads to a rejection of consent in favour of reframing the boundary around the concept of negotiation, as proposed by Michelle Anderson (2005). This alternat ive framework for conceptualising sex and sexual violation is adapted and further developed in response to findings from an original qualitative empirical study which explored the views of a self-selecting sample of lay people, police officers, domestic violence support workers, and case workers supporting women engaged in street based sex work. A novel methodological approach based on 'empirical ethics' methodologies, developed within the discipline of Bioethics, is used to develop, refine and test conceptual categories through ' the dialogue and interrelation between normative theory and empirical data. Ultimately the thesis proposes an original model of sexual offending based around the concept of freedom to negotiate.

Exclusion, reintegration, and sexual offending are explored in this thesis with particular reference to the 'black box' of probation practice. Exclusion and reintegration are discussed in conceptual terms and with reference to existing theoretical and empirical literature. Conceptually, exclusion and reintegration are both complex and diverse, with the first part of the thesis devoted to exploration of links between subjects such as social capital and citizenship, exclusion and rei ntegration. Theories from existing theoretical and empirical research pertaining to the backdrop to sex offender probation practice, exclusion and reintegration are then considered. Considering such theories leads to the 'co-presence' thesis, which suggests that both exclusion and reintegration will have roles to playas strategies and objectives in sex offender probation practice. An empirical investigation of the 'black box' of probation practice then considers the roles that exclusion and reintegration play in sex offender probation practice and the applicability of the 'co-presence' thesis. Though the writer found that the 'co-presence' thesis was applicable to sex offender probation practice, with exclusion and reintegration playing important roles, the emergent picture was not a straightforward one. Offenders were classified into different groups via a taxonomy, highlighting differences in terms of their levels of reintegration, strategies that were adopted, and the impact of such strategies on offenders' lives. Consideration of various 'problematics' also highlights the complexities raised by sex offender reintegration, especially where offenders were not 'integrated' prior to their current convictions. The 'problematics' identified reduced scope for the use of reintegrative strategies with sex offenders. This thesis highlights the need to understand and explore the roles that exclusion and reintegration play in sex offender probation practice in order to maximise beneficial outcomes arising from such probation practice.

No description available.

South Africa is alleged to have the highest rate of sexual abuse per capita among 49 other countries. These statistics and media reports have sparked debates about what could account for the sexual abuse of children under the age of six including babies. Speculations about what would account for this allegedly high incidence have used patriarchy, poverty, HTV / AIDS and the 'virgin myth'. To date not enough research has been completed to clarify or test the various theories that abound in the country. This thesis explores one element of the problem - how perpetrators make sense of sexual acts with young children in South Africa. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 incarcerated sex offenders~ aged between 16 and 86, all convicted for sexual abuse of children aged six years and below.

Background A variety of research designs have been employed to explore the efficacy of the wide range of interventions for sex offenders with learning disabilities. This paper reviews these studies to consider the efficacy of such treatments. Methods Computerised searches and less formal literature gathering led to the identification of 31 studies that reported outcome. Results Many of the studies are methodologically flawed through failure to use a control group, small sample size, variations in inclusion criteria and definitions of learning disabilities and sexual offending, and lack of standardised outcome measures. Some credible studies have found better and more durable attitudinal change with treatment lasting at least 2 years Conclusion It is suggested that this area of work has still to establish a rigorous evidence base. The review concludes with some suggestions for future research and a consideration of the continued importance of this research. Prepared for Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities

No description available.

No description available.

Après avoir traité le viol d'un point de vue anthropologique et juridique nous abordons ce crime d'un point de vue psychologique en mettant en avant que c'est un acte de violence interpersonnelle reconnu comme l’un des événements les plus traumatisants. Il occasionne de multiples conséquences psychologiques et somatiques à court terme, moyen et long termes. Notre travail de recherche vise à mettre en évidence, au cours de l’entretien psychologique avec cinq victimes de viol, les états mentaux que celles-ci attribuent à leurs agresseurs dans leur appropriation subjective de l'événement traumatique. En effet, dans sa quête de sens relative à l’agression sexuelle subie, la victime peut être amenée à rechercher des causes, des raisons au(x) passage(s) à l'acte de l’agresseur. Pour cela, nous analysons les discours des victimes et la structure de leur raisonnement grâce à la logique interlocutoire, méthode d’étude de la pragmatique du discours dialogué / After treating the rape of an anthropological and legal perspective, we approach this crime from a psychological point of view by emphasizing that it is an act of interpersonal violence recognized as one of the most traumatic events. It causes many psychological and physical consequences in the short, medium and long terms. Our research aims to highlight, during the psychological interview with five rape victims, the mental states that they attribute to their attackers in their subjective appropriation of the traumatic event. Indeed, in her quest for meaning of sexual aggression, victim may have to search for causes, reasons for the occurrence of the trauma. For this, we analyze the speech of victims and the structure of their reasoning through the interlocutory logic, study method of the pragmatics of dialogued speech

Rape and sexual violence have long been acknowledged in feminist literature as a silenced social problem which requires long term strategies for prevention, prosecution and support. Social sciences more generally, however, have had a more ambivalent relationship with the theoretical and conceptual development of research in this area. Outside of feminist sociology and criminology there has been little engagement, yet sexual violence remains a prevalent social problem in all regions of the globe. The latter half of the twentieth century saw quick and significant changes to the structures of states as the result of localised and international conflicts, many of which continue or are experiencing post-conflict transformation that has resulted in global growths in refugee populations as a result of forced migration. Alongside this has been an increasing globalisation of rights based approaches related to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the Geneva Convention of 1951 and the development of United Nations Resolutions and the establishment of the International Criminal Courts. Focussing on Merseyside as a case study, a main area of dispersal in the UK, this thesis critically examines domestic responses to women's asylum applications and support for women survivors of conflict related sexual violence. Using qualitative activist methodologies from a feminist standpoint perspective, it explores support available through interviews with local governmental and non-governmental organisations working within sexual violence support, asylum, and/or women's organisations before applying a structural analysis of long term impacts of sexual violence through an oral history with Hawwi, an Ethiopian rape survivor and asylum seeker in . . Merseyside. It concludes that, despite international developments, women's rights continue to lie marginalised in these arenas within and outside of academia. As such, important gaps in response exist with regard to sexual violence in conflict, but also in Merseyside. It concludes that, like rights based developments, considerations for applications continue to overlook the gendered experience of conflict, particularly with regard to the widespread perpetration of sexual violence. As such, limited resources for support exist for women survivors in Merseyside which can have detrimental effects on women's emotional, psychological and physical health as well as having wider social impacts beyond the individual.