Sexual violence continues to be a significant public health problem affecting significant portions of the population. Unfortunately, an agreed upon theory of etiology remains elusive leading to challenges in developing effective prevention and treatment interventions. Recently, there is a growing body of literature examining the role of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) in the development of sexually violent behavior. This research has begun to explore the rates of various types of child maltreatments and family dysfunction in individuals who have been convicted of a sexual crime. These empirical inquiries have been primarily descriptive in nature and have not yet provided a cohesive theoretical model as to why the presence of ACEs might contribute to sexually abusive behavior. This article suggests that attachment theory offers an explanatory link between early adversity and sexually abusive behavior in adulthood. We first summarize important attachment theory concepts, then integrate them with research in the area of developmental psychopathology and ACEs, and finally propose a model by which attachment can be used as an explanatory theory for subsequent sexualized coping and sexually abusive behaviors. Finally, this article explores the implications for practice, policy, and research using this explanatory theory as a framework for understanding sexual violence.

Although research has examined perceptions of child sexual abuse (CSA) prevention and the efficacy of sex offender policies (SOPs), less research compares these perceptions between different backgrounds. We explore these perceptions among North Carolina stakeholders with backgrounds related to (a) victims of CSA, (b) individuals convicted of sex crimes (ICSCs), and/or (c) law enforcement and policymakers. Specifically, we examine how these backgrounds differ in the perceived efficacy of (a) the ability to prevent CSA, (b) containment-based SOPs, and (c) assistance-based SOPs. We find that the victim-focused background was the most optimistic that CSA prevention is possible, and the law and policy background was the most pessimistic. Furthermore, the ICSC-focused background was the least likely to believe in the effectiveness of containment-based strategies and the most likely to believe in the effectiveness of assistance-based strategies. An overlapping victim-and-ICSC background consistently fell in between the views of victim-only and ICSC-only backgrounds.

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