The explanation of sexual offending: from single factor theories to integrative pluralism Tony Ward* School of Psychology, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand Abstract Theory formulation and development are crucial cognitive tasks in science and help to explain empirical findings and to guide future research. In this paper, I examine theory creation in the sexual offending domain and note that there is a sense in which the field has become somewhat stagnant. After reviewing the function of theories and explanatory strategies in psychopathology and the sex offending area, I make five suggestions for future development. First, I propose that we should endorse integrative pluralism as a theory-building strategy. Second, we need to shift our focus from construct validity procedures and look to understand underlying causal processes. Third, attention to individuals’ experiences, values and beliefs should be a priority, and we ought not to regard this level of analysis as unworthy of research. Fourth, theorists should clearly describe the targets of their explanations prior to setting out theories and, ideally, before they start formulating them. Fifth, we ought to capitalise on the work already provided by seminal researchers in the field and not continually reinvent the wheel. Keywords Sex offender theories; levels of explanation; theories of sexual offending; theory development Introduction This is an interesting time for researchers working in the sexual offending field. There are indicators of significant progress in some areas and signs of regression in other domains. For example, I think most clinicians would accept that there has been an increase in the quality of research on risk assessment and management, and greater awareness of the importance of posttreatment reintegration of sex offenders into the community (Laws & Ward, 2011). Unfortunately, alongside these gains there has been a narrowing of treatment goals to an almost exclusive concern with community protection and reluctance to accept that, once punished, sex offenders have an ethical right to community support and opportunities to live “good” lives (Ward & Maruna, 2007). Furthermore, the status of theory construction has fallen significantly and there is very little cooperation between researchers working on the conceptualisation of risk factors and those seeking to explain the causes of sexual offending. In addition, assessment and case formulation seems to revolve largely around the detection of dynamic risk factors and the classification of offenders and their problems amounts to formulating risk profiles. *Email: tony.ward@vuw.ac.nz Journal of Sexual Aggression, 2014 Vol. 20, No. 2, 130–141, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13552600.2013.870242 © 2013 National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers