The current study assessed features associated with drink spiking, or the adding of a substance to another person's drink without the consumer's knowledge or consent. A sample of 805 Australians, aged 18-35 years, completed a survey designed to measure the occurrence and predictors of the perpetration and victimisation of drink spiking. Almost half of the sample reported at least one experience of purchasing or mixing cocktails for others (49% and 45%, respectively), while smaller proportions reported adding alcohol to punch (26%) and adding alcoholic shots to alcoholic beverages belonging to other people (16%). A number of participants also reported previous experience of adding alcoholic shots to non-alcoholic beverages (6%), adding prescription or illicit substances to alcoholic beverages (1%), adding substances to non-alcoholic beverages (1%), and adding substances to punch (1%). Purchasing or mixing cocktails for others, adding alcohol to punch, or adding alcoholic shots to alcoholic beverages were predicted by beliefs that deliberately causing intoxication in others is acceptable and that alcohol consumption by others is indicative of their sexual attraction to participants. Engagement in these behaviours was also predicted by participants' illicit substance use and participation in casual sexual activity. Adding prescription or illicit substances to other people's beverages, or adding alcoholic shots to non-alcoholic beverages, were predicted by the belief that alcohol consumption increases one's confidence and sexual responsiveness, and by participants' use of narcotics and sedatives. Perpetrators were predominantly motivated by a wish to have fun or to increase the likelihood of engaging in consensual sexual activity. With regard to victimisation of drink spiking, 26% of the sample reported at least one victimisation. The majority of incidents occurred in licensed venues, after the participant had engaged in such low supervisory behaviours as leaving their drink unattended or accepting a drink without observing its preparation. Most participants established a belief that they had been spiked after experiencing a degree of intoxication that was beyond their expected level (based on the amount of alcohol consumption), or after experiencing such physiological symptoms as vomiting, hallucinations, lack of coordination, or unconsciousness. Despite such experiences, 85% of victims did not report the incident to authorities. Victimisation in general was predicted by participants' use of stimulant and hallucinogenic substances. Female victimisation was predicted by previous episodes of victimisation of oral sexual assault. Victimisation was not affected by participants' degree of supervision of their drinks. These findings provided empirical evidence that drink spiking is committed primarily for the purposes of creating a fun, entertaining situation. However, it was also apparent that drink spiking is perpetrated in an attempt to encourage participation in consensual sexual activity; this was particularly the case in incidents involving the addition of substances, as opposed to alcohol, to beverages belonging to others. Conclusions regarding the motivations held by perpetrators of drink spiking and the post-spiking experiences of victims informed the provision of recommendations for intervention for victims and prevention programs aimed at reducing the incidence of victimisation in the future.

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Sexual violence is a major public health issue within the United States, particularly that with perpetrators who are men and victims who are women. Understanding risk factors for sexual violence perpetration is necessary to decrease the overall severity of sexual violence. In past research, psychological reactance has been shown to be associated with sexual violence perpetration, yet there is limited research on this association. Additionally, previous research has found that other traits may enhance the predictive properties of psychological reactance and that sensation seeking can predict sexual violence risk factors and sexual violence perpetration. Yet there is little to no research on how sensation seeking and psychological reactance work jointly to predict sexual violence perpetration. This thesis aims to explore these factors as possible predictors for sexual violence perpetration and sensation seeking as a moderator of the relationship between reactance and sexual violence perpetration. A better understanding of these predictors could allow for new ways to understand sexual violence perpetration overall and aid in future research. Based on this information, reactance, sensation seeking, and their interaction effect are all expected to significantly predict sexual violence perpetration. The current study examined 226 participants who were men, single, attracted to women, and over the age of 18 living in the U.S. Participants were recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk, and completed an online survey hosted on Qualtrics. Participants reported past sexual violence perpetration, sensation seeking, psychological reactance, and demographic information. Results provided partial support for the hypothesis. Findings indicated that higher levels of psychological reactance and sensation seeking were positively associated with sexual violence perpetration; however, sensation seeking as a moderator was not significant.

This thesis develops a theoretical account of the basis and justification for the doctrine of Joint Criminal Enterptise in international criminal law by examining principles governing the ascription of criminal responsibility in English and German criminal law. The first part consists of a comprehensive review of the development of the JCE doctrine, including its historical antecedents, its initial formulation by the ICTY, its subsequent explication by tribunals and academics, and recent alternatives doctrines proposed by the ICC and by commentators. It identifies the main loopholes and contradictions in the construction of these theories, and presents factual scenarios for which these theories, particularly JCE, either have no answers, or problematic ones. The second part examines whether any of the variants of JCE can be justified as principal responsibility. It first identifies elements that distinguish international crimes from their domestic counterparts, and which are pertinent in developing an account of criminal responsibility for international crimes. It also examines the concept of perpetration responsibility in English and German criminal law and theory. It then combines the insights gleaned from these analyses to conclude that only JCE I can be appropriately considered as perpetrator responsibility and proposes a modified version of the doctrine of Organisationsherrschaft in German criminal law as a more accurate characterisation of the role and function of high level participants in mass atrocity. The final part focuses on the concept of accomplice responsibility in German and English criminal law and doctrine to address whether JCE II and JCE III can be justified as modes of secondary criminal responsibility. It concludes that JCE II and JCE III can be retained as distinct modes of accomplice liability using expressive and risk justifications, provided their operation is limited in ways that correspond to principles of secondary responsibility in domestic jurisdictions.

The present study aimed to expand the knowledge base regarding incarcerated women’s experiences with violence and their mental health with the goal of identifying avenues for more tailored, compassionate responses to their mental health difficulties in both macro and direct practice contexts. To achieve this aim, a secondary data analysis was performed using data from the Survey of Inmates in State Correctional Facilities (SISCF) completed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) in 2004. Six research questions pertaining to women’s experiences with violence and their mental health difficulties and service utilization guided the inquiry, which involved univariate, bivariate, and multivariate statistical analyses, including latent class analysis, performed to identify patterns in mental health difficulties among incarcerated women, and multiple logistic regression procedures. The latent class analysis resulted in selection of a 4-class solution which grouped women in the sample into four subgroups according to the latent variable of mental health difficulties. The four subgroups included the serious mental illness group (8.7%), the mood and drug use disorders group (30.3%), the substance use only group (11.7%), and the resilient group (49.4%). Women were less likely to be in the resilient mental health group and more likely to engage with a range of mental health services if they had perpetrated violence or experienced various forms of victimization, including sexual victimization in either childhood or adulthood, or physical victimization in either childhood or adulthood. Social workers should develop and implement clinical mental health treatment in correctional centers tailored to the mental health needs of subgroups identified through latent class analysis, including treatment for co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders. Clinical mental health treatment should also target those needs related to trauma stemming from victimization and perpetration of violence. Additionally, social workers should advocate for policies and programs to prevent and remediate drug-related crime and divert women with serious mental illness away from the criminal justice system.

This study was conducted to explore the relationship between social support and youth violence by testing the relationships between violence victimization, violence exposure, violence perpetration, delinquency, and the moderating variable of social support for rural female adolescents in the United States. This research, guided by the social disorganization theory, involved analyses of data from Wave 3 of the National Survey for Children's Exposure to Violence. The logistic regression analyses (n = 278; female; rural area; mean age 13.5) showed no moderating effect of social support on youth violence perpetration. However, there was a positive association between delinquency and violence perpetration, and a relationship between violence victimization in the forms of child maltreatment, exposure to peer victimization, exposure to sibling victimization, exposure to family violence, witnessing violence, and indirect victimization and violence perpetration. The research contributes to positive social change by providing more evidence about the gender-specific needs of rural adolescent females. This evidence may be used in the development of sustainable violence prevention programs and other services designed to prevent child maltreatment and other forms of violence exposure and victimizations, and subsequent violence perpetration.

The concept of social support has been found to be a protective factor in women's intimate partner violence victimization. However, little is known about the relationship between women's social support and their intimate partner violence perpetration. Research evidence demonstrates that women's perpetration of violence is surprisingly frequent, particularly in women younger than age 30. This study investigated the role of social support in heterosexual women's use and receipt of non-lethal aggression against an intimate partner among 673 female college students. The implications of these findings for research and practice are discussed.

Peer violence perpetration and victimization are the most common types of violence among youths (Swahn et al., 2008). This study determined the associations between peer violence attitudes and involvement in peer violence perpetration and peer violence victimization among boys and girls in high-risk urban community. Analyses were based on data from the 2004 Youth Violence Survey, administered to over 80% of public school students in grades 7, 9, 11, and 12 (N = 4131) in a high-risk urban community. Chi-square and logistic regression analyses were conducted to test the associations between attitudes and involvement in violent behaviors after controlling for demographic characteristics and potential confounders (e.g., child maltreatment, substance use, weapon carrying, and efficacy to avoid violence). Results show that among all youths, attitudes supporting boys hitting boys significantly increased the odds of peer violence perpetration (AOR: 1.48; 95% CI = 1.13, 1.95). However, stratified analyses for boys and girls show that attitudes supporting boys hitting boys increased the odds of peer violence perpetration for girls only (AOR: 1.57; 95% CI = 1.04, 2.37). The findings demonstrate associations between attitudes and actual involvement in violent behaviors, but they need to be further explored. Additional research is needed to determine how attitude modifications can be incorporated into youth violence prevention programs.

Sexual violence is one of the few public health problems that can also be classified as a crime. Thus, it follows that approaches to prevention should be based in both public health principles as well as effective methods of crime reduction. Public health prevention typically focuses on interventions at levels of the Social-Ecological Model (SEM). The SEM is comprised of concentric circles that represent the individual, relational, community, and policy/environmental levels. Public health prevention goals include developing, implementing, and testing interventions at all levels of this model. For example, public health interventions for sexual violence prevention include approaches such as women’s self-defense training (individual-level) and bystander intervention training (relational). Although some interventions show statistically significant effects in changing knowledge and attitudes about sexual violence, very few show changes in preventing perpetration behavior. Criminologists have developed a crime prevention model, Situational Crime Prevention (SCP), which consists of five broad strategies that are further divided into twenty-five specific tactics. The goals of situational prevention are to deter crime by increasing the effort to perpetrate, increasing risks, reducing rewards, reducing provocations, and removing excuses. SCP has been utilized successfully, but the focus has primarily been prevention of property crimes. Very little attention has been paid to the potential utility of SCP for interpersonal violence, particularly for sexual violence. This dissertation proposes a new conceptual model for comprehensive sexual violence perpetration prevention that synthesizes the situational crime prevention matrix and the social-ecological model.