President Cyril Ramaphosa in his speech at the launch of the Gender-Based Violence (GBV) and Femicide Declaration in 2019, made the commitment to working towards decriminalising sex work in South Africa as a means to also fight GBV. This in-line with what organisations that advocate for sex work such as the Sex Workers Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) and Sonke Gender Justice have been fighting for. The plight of sex workers and the urgent requirement for sex work legislative reforms has been highlighted by the documented increase or the spotlight on GBV. Sex work is predominantly a profession taken up by women and thus the effects of its criminalisation are mostly experienced by women. Therefore, there is a close link between the struggles of sex workers the struggle against GBV. The thesis explores the reasons why advocacy groups such as SWEAT support decriminalisation as opposed to legalisation and partial decriminalisation. Drawing an understanding as to why other sex work modules do not appeal to the needs of sex workers and why they are viewed to lead back to the infringement on basic human rights. Furthermore, it looks at the impact of using the GBV platforms to address the decriminalisation of sex work in South Africa.

The dissertation employs Andersen and Newman's conceptual framework of health service utilization to examine continuity of care among homeless people. The research context is the Health Care for the Homeless Program which provides free health and medical care to thousands of homeless people in 19 major U.S. cities. The study examines continuity of care for a common illness episode among homeless people, namely peripheral vascular disease of the lower limbs and related disorders. Continuity is modeled as a function of predisposing individual, illness level, and health service system characteristics. The analysis uses multiple regression statistical methods to assess whether and the extent to which individual and health system determinants have net effects on continuity. The findings suggest two related theoretical implications. First, there are multiple sources of continuity. Second, health service system and individual characteristics affect continuity net of each other. The findings also suggest several practical implications including the importance of full-time outreach staff, verbal instructions to return for care, and more extensive weekly hours at each delivery site, just to name a few.

In this dissertation, three primary concerns about the limits of poverty and generosity are addressed. First, from a methodological point of analysis, we examine the variations in the application of the Factorial Survey method found in these three studies. Second, a more in depth examination of attitudes about, and conceptions of, the poor and the lower limits of poverty is conducted using one of these studies, the 1986 General Social Survey. Finally, a comparison of public attitudes and prevailing public policy is used as a backdrop for the discussion of the social policy implications the findings from these studies offer. The most prominent finding presented in this dissertation is that there appears to be a monetary barrier, or "floor", below which a vast majority of the American public believes no one should be allowed to fall. Over 90 percent of the respondents averaged awarding $200 or more per week to the vignette families, regardless of the circumstances presented in the scenario. Less than 2 percent of the respondents averaged less than \$150 per week in award. Second, this floor represents over TWICE the average payments that are actually provided by the Government to those persons who are deemed eligible for assistance. Indeed, for a majority of the regions in this country, the average income awarded to the vignette families was over 3 times the AFDC awards given to recipients in the lowest supported state for that region. Overall, in the analysis of the Vignette Supplement to the 1986 General Social Survey, the American public perceives that poor families with children, in almost all circumstances, are deserving of support, and that the level of support needed, and approved, is twice the amount currently provided by government programs.

Today inner city neighborhoods seem more threatened by poverty and lack of civil order than at any time since the beginning of the century. Many families confront hunger, homelessness, sickness and a lack of support on a daily basis. For over a century, settlement houses or neighborhood centers have responded to these needs while, contending with funding, staffing, and changing urban landscapes. This study investigated the transition of one settlement house located in a New England city from 1965-1990. Specifically, this investigation describes the response, during this critical time, to these challenges by the staff and leadership of Friendly House, located in Worcester, Massachusetts. An ethnomethodological approach was adopted. The data provided the history and the achievements of Friendly House and the base for possible comparison and contrasts between the Agency and other similar neighborhood centers. This descriptive case study was written by the Director who has had close and prolonged contact with Friendly House. The research questions focus upon the central theme of agency responsiveness to multiple social service requests from a rapidly challenging urban clientele. The results of the study suggest that the most effective and efficient means of delivering services to individuals and families who reside in impoverished inner city neighborhoods is through the settlement house model. Friendly House provides appropriate neighborhood-based services in a nonformalized atmosphere. The Agency affords the opportunity for an individual to be seen and talked to about his or her entire life situation in a setting close to home. Moreover, Friendly House can support at-risk families and offer a secure environment for their vulnerable children. Strategically located in a diverse, low-income neighborhood, Friendly House linked residents with central and public agencies. By continually seeking new sources of funding, Friendly House has adjusted to needs while remaining true to its settlement house roots.

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The mid-1990s brought sex offenders to the forefront of policy issues due to several highly publicized cases of abduction, sexual assault, and murder involving children. Following these cases, a number of sex offender management policies were passed to quell public concern over the safety of children due to sex offenders. Most notably, these new sex offender management policies mandated the creation of publicly available registries of sex offenders and enacted residence restrictions that forbid sex offenders from residing within certain distances from areas where children commonly congregate. Although current sex offender management policies have been revealed to be largely ineffective in reducing sex offender recidivism and also create a number of collateral consequences for the successful reintegration of sex offenders back into the community, the public has been found to be largely in support of these policies and believe in their effectiveness. The available literature examining the perceptions of professionals toward sex offender management policies, however, has shown mixed support depending upon the specific profession of the sample. Utilizing a sample (n=248) gathered from two professional organizations, this study aimed to explore and compare the perceptions of clinical specialists and non-clinical professionals in three areas: Support for current sex offender management policies, belief in collateral consequences that sex offenders may face due to these policies, and acceptability of collateral consequences as by-products of the current policies. Bivariate analyses revealed significant differences between the professionals groups in all three of the above areas. Given the significant bivariate findings, ordinary least squares regression was conducted to examine the consistency of profession as a significant predictor of the attitudes of the professionals while considering competing variables. Against a number of control variables, profession remained a significant predictor of support for sex offender management policies and belief in collateral consequences involving residence restrictions, however, profession was not a significant predictor of acceptability of collateral consequences. Several other factors, including punishment philosophy and belief in the cause of sex offending, emerged throughout the multivariate analyses as having a significant influence on the perceptions of the professionals.