Criminal Justice reflection assignment

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Chapter 6:

Rape and Sexual Assault

A Crime of Violence

Few crimes evoke such a visceral reaction as rape.
It is because it is a violation of the most intimate kind.
Rape is also a crime that is subject to more misunderstandings than many other types of violence.
We tend to perceive it, for example, as a crime only against women.
We tend to think of it, for example, only in terms of forced intercourse.

How Many Victims Are There?

One of the more accurate surveys is the National Violence Against Women & Men Survey that suggests
Over 900,000 men and women over the age of 18 become the victims of rape annually.
Unfortunately, the only estimates of rape and sexual assault available at most levels, including state and city, are from the less reliable police reports.

Non-Reporting

Most victims, less than 3 out of 10, report being victimized. They are reluctant because
Of the intimate nature of the assault
Fear of retaliation from the offender
Fear of not being believed
Shame, embarrassment, and social stigma
Fear of being victimized by justice system (2nd rape)

Demographic Factors from the NCVS

Younger people had the highest rates of rape, with those 16 to 19 years of age being at the greatest risk of rape.
By the age of 35, the risk of rape decreases significantly and remains at low levels throughout the remainder of the life course.
Income also appears to be related to rape victimization.
Individuals living in families with lower incomes have an increased risk of victimization compared to individuals residing in families with higher incomes.

Rape and Molestation of Children

Child protection services divisions are mandated to remove victims from abusive situations.
All states have mandatory reporting laws, requiring action from school and healthcare personnel.
Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act defines sexual abuse and exploitation
Employment, use, inducement, or coercion of any child to engage in sexually explicit conduct . . .
Rape, molestation, prostitution, or other form of sexual exploitation of children or incest with children . . .
Estimates range from 114,000 to 300,000 cases per year
Deflated due to underreporting
1 in 5 girls and 1 in 20 boys are victimized
Offenders are overwhelmingly male and known to their victims

College Women and Rape

Research suggests that women attending college are at greater risk for rape and sexual assault compared to other women of the same age in the general population.
Data suggest that nearly 5% of college women are victimized in any given calendar year.
For every 1,000 women attending these types of institutions there may be 35 incidents of rape in a given academic year.
One study sampled 6,000 students from 32 colleges and found that 53% reported some sort of unwanted sexual contact.
Of those, 15% had been victimized by rape, and 12% had experienced an attempted rape.

College Rape

Contrary to popular mythology, most victims know their assailants.
9 out of 10 offenders were known to the victim in the NCWSV study, while Koss found that 83% of the victims knew their assailant.
The majority of the offenders were other classmates, friends, boyfriends, and ex-boyfriends.
Similarly, the majority of rapes, regardless of whether they occurred on or off campus, took place in residences.
Often these rapes are facilitated by a variety of drugs.

Responses to College Rape

Student Right-to-Know and Campus Security Act of 1990
Institutions participating in federal aid programs must prepare, produce, and distribute an annual security report.
Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act
Institutions must publish more specific policies regarding awareness and prevention of sexual assault.
National College Women Sexual Assault Victimization Study (NCWSV)
Department of Justice funded survey that closely explores the phenomenon

Prison Rape

Rape and sexual assaults against inmates that occur in correctional facilities
Perpetrated by other inmates and/or correctional staff
Convict culture prohibits snitching and precludes victims’ reporting.
Human Rights Watch obtained testimony from over 200 prisoners in 37 states and published “No Escape: Male Rape in Prison.”
Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003
Requires BJS to develop data collection on sexual assault in correctional facilities

Rape and the U.S. Military

In a survey of active-duty men and women conducted by the Rand Corporation for the DOD, the percentage of women who had experienced unwanted sexual contact in the past year declined from 6.1% 2012 to 4.3% in 2014.
Just over half (53%) of female victims who reported their attacks to a military authority told interviewers that they perceived social retaliation, while about one third perceived adverse administrative action (35%) or professional retaliation (32%).

Source: Department of Defense Annual Report on Sexual Assault in the Military, Fiscal Year 2014

Genocide and Rape

Rape as a byproduct of war, population annihilation, and ethnic cleansing
Women are just one of the many “spoils of war.”
Widespread brutal rape of Tutsi women in Rwanda
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda convicted Jean Paul Akayesu in 1998
Serbian “ethnic cleansing” efforts

Rapists

Rape is a very varied phenomenon, and consequently, rapists are a heterogeneous group.
This means that no single theory is going to explain all rape.
Furthermore, studies based on interviews with convicted rapists in prison can not be generalized to all rapists because so few rapes are ever reported to police, much less end in conviction and incarceration of the offender.

Reasons for Rape

Rapists commit their crimes for a variety of reasons, but three themes seem to run through all of them:
Power
Anger
Sexuality

Rape Typologies

One such classification scheme divides rapists into four broad types:
Power reassurance: suffers from low self-esteem, feelings of being inadequate and, in the act of rape, tries to achieve a sense of personal empowerment
Anger retaliation: feels a tremendous amount of hostility toward women and consequently uses rape as a vehicle of revenge
Power assertive: individuals achieve a powerful feeling of being in control and of having the power of life or death over their victims
Sadistic: displays extreme violence and cruelty; revels in the pain and humiliation that inflicted on their victims

Power and Dominance

Violence against women is an expression of a patriarchal social structure.
Subjugation of women is built into the organization of society.
Socialization encourages males to associate aggression and virility with masculinity and women to adopt submissive/passive roles.
Belief in traditional sex roles is related to attitudes endorsing violence against women.

Response to Rape Victims and Offenders

Rape law reforms
Replaced single crime code of rape with gender- and relationship-neutral series of offenses graded by severity
Changed consent standards
Eliminated corroboration requirements
Enacting rape shield laws
Sexual assault response team (SART)
Coordinated response team includes victim assistance workers and trained investigative personnel
Sexual assault nurse examiners (SANE)
Provide expert testimony for prosecution in sexual assault cases

Criminal Justice System and Sexual Assault Offenders

National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP)
Data collection for the purpose of evaluating what happens when rape offenders are adjudicated
Pam Lyncher Sexual Offender Tracking and Identification Act of 1996
Mandated creation of national database of convicted sex offenders designed to track them as they move from state to state
Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act
Jurisdiction now includes federally recognized American Indian Tribes
Expanded number of sex offenses captured by registrations
Established Office of Sex Offender Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending, Registering and Tracking to administer standards of notification and registration

Conclusions

Rape is not a rare event.
Sexual assault is used a tool of violence, power, and dominance.
As the law stands, the vast majority of assailants will never be punished.

Open-Access Student Resources

· SAGE journal articles

· Multimedia resources

and more at study.sagepub.com/alvarez3e

Alvarez/Bachman, Violence: The Enduring Problem, 3rd Edition