C ATEGORÍAS PROVISIONALES DE LA NUEVA T AXONOMÍA

The most simple classification system used for grouping the attack strategies adopted in sexual offences committed against adult women is ‘blitz’ and ‘con’. Blitz tactics, frequently associated with incidents that are motivated by anger and hostility, involve sudden interactions in which the offender uses direct force to confront and then control their victim (Ullman & Knight, 1991). Sexual offences in which this strategy is adopted are usually violent however it is not always the case that the victim is a stranger.

That is, although studies do tend to report a more frequent use of this approach among offenders who select a stranger victim (see, for example LeBeau, 1987; Ullman & Knight, 1991; 1992), it has also been found that sudden and aggressive tactics can be used to facilitate interactions between acquaintances and intimates (Clark & Quadara, 2010;

Logan et al., 2007).

The ‘con’ approach, in comparison, is characterized by the use of deceptive or coercive tactics to get the victim to take part in sexual contact. As previously discussed, men will often use these types of strategies within the context of an intimate relationship so they can gain sexual access to an unwilling female partner (Chiu & Leclerc, 2016). In

the work of Logan and colleagues (2007) for example it was reported that amongst a sample of women who had experienced forced sexual contact with an intimate, the majority had been subject to accusations of having an affair (93.5%), threats that the man would seek sex elsewhere if they did not concede (71%), directions that it was their duty to provide sex (74.2%), and episodes of guilt until they gave in to sex (87.1%). Research by Woodhams and Labusdchagne (2012) has also highlighted the increasing prevalence of deception and trickery in the modus operandi of stranger offenders and, in particular, serial rapists. Through a descriptive analysis of sexual offences (n=119) committed by serial rapists in South Africa, the authors identified six unique strategies which were characteristic of the con approach. These involved offering the victim assistance in gaining employment (n=48), pretending to be in need of help themselves (n=15), bribing the victim to follow them (n=4), engaging the victim in conversation (n=4), offering to assist the victim in some way (n=3), and pretending to be an authority figure (n=3). Based on this diversity in approach tactics, Woodhams and Labusdchagne (2012) subsequently concluded that the method of approach used by a sexual offender is to some extent a reflection of evolving environmental cues. These include location of the victim, the activities the victim is engaged in prior to the crime, and the offender’s own physical and mental state (Beauregard et al., 2007a; Deslauriers-Varin & Beauregard, 2010; Rebocho and Silva, 2014).

The work of Beauregard and colleagues (2007a) and Deslauriers-Varin &

Beauregard (2010) add to this literature on offender approach strategies by proposing that the tactic an offender relies on to make initial contact with the victim is the product of an interaction between both situational context and personal attributes. Through an analysis of the hunting processes employed by serial sexual offenders for example, Beauregard and colleagues (2007a) identified three crime scripts which were each distinct from one

another in terms of both offending behaviour and their geographic components. Nested within each script were also a number of tracks which highlighted the specific circumstances and actions that sub-groups of sexual offenders adopt in order to carry out sexually aggressive acts. These scripts, and their respective tracks, were: (1) coercive script consisting of home-intrusion track and an outdoor rape track, (2) manipulative script consisting of a sophisticated rape track and a family-infiltrator rape track, and the (3) non-persuasive script consisting of a direct-action rape track. In addition to providing further evidence to support the broad ‘con’ and ‘blitz’ classification system, these results are also consistent with an interaction between offending location and the specific approach strategies used. Moreover, they highlight the relevance of the person-situation interaction in discussions of sexual offending modus operandi.

In more recent literature, Deslauriers-Varin & Beauregard (2010) contributed to the discussion on the geographical/situational interaction in sexual offending behaviours by exploring the target selection scripts of serial sexual offenders. Using data from the same serial group of sexual offenders as Beauregard et al. (2007a), Deslauriers-Varin &

Beauregard (2010) identified three unique target selection scripts which were each comprised of two tracks. These were: (1) home script involving an intrusion track and an invited track, (2) outdoor script involving a non-coercive track and a coercive track, and the (3) social script involving an on-site script and an off-site script. The findings of this study were largely congruent with the work of Beauregard et al. (2007a) in that the types of offending strategies adopted were generally mediated by the location in which an offender encounters their victim. Furthermore, this research identified that the target selection process is heavily influenced by the routine activities of a victim which helps emphasize the importance of situational context in understanding the criminal event.

This notion that the decision making of sexual offenders is mediated not only by individual characteristics, but equally by the situational context, is also evidenced in the recent work of Chiu and Leclerc (2016). In particular, this work flags the unique differences in the modus operandi observed in those events involving interactions between acquaintances. The circumstances surrounding these particular offences, whereby the offender and victim have a previously established relationship, is noted to result in offence scripts which are characterized by lower levels of violence and physical force, a relatively lesser usage of multiple offence locations, and a greater likelihood of post-action interaction between the offender and victim¹. Further, the scholars found that

“offender reaction, victim reaction and sexual acts formed an interactive relationship with each other” (Chiu & Leclerc, 2016, p. 13). The emergence of this cyclical process has important connotations for how offender decision making in sexual events is understood as it suggests that offenders do not specifically rely on a pre-determined sequence of actions. Rather, it might be that sexual offender modus operandi is instead a fluid process in which offenders make strategic decisions based on a variety of choice-structuring properties.