Abstract
This thesis describes research into the sexual assault of female strangers, victims attacked by men unknown to them, and the offenders who committed those crimes. The statements of 209 victims were content analysed, (Krippendorf 1980), using a definitional categorisation process and data thus produced analysed by a multidimensional scaling procedure. Smallest Space Analysis, (Lingoes 1973), of sexual offence behaviour revealed a faceted explanation of rape characteristics in which the elements of criminal, aggressive, sexual and pseudo-intimate behaviour could be observed. The facet structure, (Canter 1985), provided a model of sexual offence behaviour by which serial, and non-serial sex offenders could be classified by examination of their physical and verbal activities exhibited in the sexual crimes. The model of sexual assault behaviour supported some of the conceptual classifications of rapists, such as that of Groth, (1977), and provided empirical support for the classification of rapists used by the FBI, Hazelwood (1987). Motivational classifications pervade the approaches to profiling the unknown sexual offender, however this thesis proposes that an "investigative classification" of sexual assault is required as a preliminary process in providing assistance to detectives. In so doing, the derived model of sexual assault behaviour revealed interpretable traits which could be associated with known characteristics of sexual offenders. The criminal records of 76 sex offenders were content analysed, and from the descriptions of their sexual crimes each was assigned to an exploratory classification system. The classified types were then examined using information about their criminal, social, interpersonal and familial characteristics. Variations between the proposed exploratory types were observed in many of the background data, leading to the first steps in producing investigative classifications of rapists from their sex crime behaviour, a process of extrapolation from the crime to a psycho-social profile of the offender responsible.