Models of the offense process serve to ground both the provision of treatment and the development of higher order theory. They also set out to provide a description of the cognitive, behavioral, motivational, and contextual factors associated with a particular type of offense. This study on the development of the preliminary rape model (RM) demonstrates the utility of a grounded-theory approach in analyzing offenders’ narratives of their offense processes, specifically men who had sexually assaulted adults. Research participants consisted of 24 men currently serving a prison sentence in New Zealand for sexual violation or attempted sexual violation, such as rape of a person older than the age of 16 years. A model was constructed around offenders’ explicit goals which found that the goal of committing a sexual offense was only rarely explicit early in the offense process. This preliminary descriptive model of the rape offense process is based on verbal descriptions provided by the sample of incarcerated rapists. Even though further development of the RM is necessary, it fills an existing gap in the research literature. References