Fear of Crime among College Students: A Test of the Shadow of Sexual Assault Hypothesis

Women’s fear of rape and sexual assault has been both theoretically and empirically linked to their fear of other types of crimes, a phenomenon referred to as the shadow of sexual assault hypothesis in past research. This thesis has been supported across specific populations (i.e., the general population of women in the United States and college women in the United States), but the research examining the shadow of sexual assault hypothesis has suffered from methodological limitations. The current research corrected these limitations and performed a test of the shadow of sexual assault hypothesis among college and university students across temporal situations and victim-offender relationships. The findings indicate that women’s fear of rape and sexual assault does impact their fear of nonsexual crimes across temporal situations and victim-offender relationships.     

Criminal victimization and low self-control: An extension and test of a general theory of crime

Using data on victimization from a national sample of college students, we replicated, refined, and extended Ferraro's models to test the “shadow of sexual assault” thesis and to explore factors that heightened women's age-specific fear of rape. We took into account temporal dimensions of crime-specific fear (during the day and at night) and used a domain-specific model. Overall, fear of rape among college women “shadowed” their fear of other personal crimes. Our age-specific results concerning college women's fear of rape largely mirrored Ferraro's results for women more generally. Policy implications and directions for future research are discussed.     

Testing the relative importance of contemporaneous offenses: The impacts of fear of sexual assault versus fear of physical harm among men and women

Purpose

The current study tests the shadow of sexual assault hypothesis and extends recent research by examining whether the fear of physical harm or the fear of sexual assault has a greater impact on fear of other crimes.

Methods

To determine the unique interaction between gender and fear, we conduct separate analyses among men and women.

Results

While fear of physical harm and fear of sexual intrusion are both predictive of fear of home invasion, robbery, and murder, fear of physical harm has a significantly greater impact across all types of fear (e.g., home invasion, robbery, murder).

Conclusions

Despite previous empirical evidence that suggests fear operates differently among men and women, our findings suggest that fear of physical harm - rather than fear of sexual intrusion - is a more robust predictor of fear of crime among both men and women.     

An exploration of burglary in the criminal histories of sex offenders referred for civil commitment

Commission of nonsexual crimes generally antedates officially recorded sexual offenses. In particular, burglary has been hypothesized to be a potential ‘stepping stone’ in the development of one's sexual criminal career in the same way that marijuana has often been considered a ‘gateway drug’ to more serious drug-related offenses. The present study examined the officially recorded criminal histories of 828 male sex offenders to determine the relevance of burglary in their criminal histories. One third of the men in the sample (n=281, 34%) had been charged at least once for burglary. These 281 men committed a total of 762 separate incidents of burglary. Offenders with at least one officially recorded charge for burglary (BSOs) were compared with those with no such charges (SOs). Next, the characteristics of each burglary were examined and four distinct types of burglary were identified: nonsexual, covertly sexual, overtly sexual, and combination burglary/rape. BSOs accrued twice as many charges as the SOs and were significantly more likely to have an earlier age of onset, a longer criminal career, more employment problems, elementary school problems, antisocial behavior, and substance abuse.     

A review of the role of radical feminist theories in the understanding of rape myth acceptance

Abstract

Research into rape myth acceptance (RMA) first emerged in the 1970s, when authors such as Brownmiller (1975) and Burt (1980) proposed that rape was a mechanism that allowed men to exert power over women and that the endorsement of rape myths justified this sexual dominance. These influential theories have meant that subsequent definitions of rape myths have failed to acknowledge male victims of serious sexual assault, despite an increase in prevalence rates. More recent research has attempted to explore RMA in relation to male victims, with results suggesting that men are more likely than women to endorse rape myths regarding male victims when the victim is assumed to be homosexual, or when the victim is heterosexual and the perpetrator is female. Brownmiller's theory is challenged and a more holistic view of the importance of sex-role traditionality is explored, while acknowledging the contribution of individual factors relating to the development of RMA.     

The influences of incident and contextual characteristics on crime clearance of nonlethal violence: A multilevel event history analysis

Using multilevel event history analyses, this article investigates the effects of both incident and contextual (social disorganization and police resources) factors on crime clearance by arrest for robbery, forcible rape, and aggravated assault incidents in 106 cities. The analysis found that victim's age, the number of concomitant offenses and victims, victim's injury, and weapon use played important roles in crime clearance for all three types of nonlethal violent incidents. Among social disorganization variables, higher unemployment and racial segregation significantly decreased the odds of clearance for robbery and aggravated assault, but not for rape. Instead, higher divorce rates significantly decreased the odds of rape clearance. This suggests that social disorganization may play a different role in the clearance mechanisms for sexual than for nonsexual violent offenses. The effects of police resource variables on clearance were not significant in the expected direction for any of the three types of incidents.     

“To This Day She Continues to Struggle with the Terror Imposed upon Her”: Rape Narratives in Victim Impact Statements

This study locates the victim impact statements of raped women in the sociolegal context of significant sentencing law reforms introduced in Canada to address an ascendant victim’s rights movement. We examine 38 reported sentencing decisions in sexual assault cases in Ontario, Canada (1999–2010). Our objectives are to discern (a) whether the archetype of the ideal victim continues to influence juridical discourse after conviction and (b) what narratives of harm intersect with sentencing objectives and aggravating factors. Our findings suggest women express profound fear of re-victimization and traumatic effects of sexual violence regardless of the relational context of their rape experience. Most surprisingly, our data show sentencing judges view the sexual assault of an intoxicated rape victim as an aggravating factor. Future consideration for victim impact statements in sexual assault cases is discussed.     

Risk factors for physical assault and rape among six Native American tribes

Prevalence and correlates of adult physical assault and rape in six Native American tribes are presented (N = 1,368). Among women, 45% reported being physically assaulted and 14% were raped since age 18 years. For men, figures were 36% and 2%, respectively. Demographic characteristics, adverse childhood experiences, adulthood alcohol dependence, and cultural and regional variables were assessed. Using logistic regression, predictors of physical assault among women were marital status, an alcoholic parent, childhood maltreatment, and lifetime alcohol dependence. Predictors of sexual assault among women were marital status, childhood maltreatment, and lifetime alcohol dependence. Among men, only childhood maltreatment and lifetime alcohol dependence predicted being physically assaulted. Tribal differences existed in rates of physical assault (both sexes) and rape (women only). The results underscore the problem of violence victimization among Native Americans and point to certain environmental features that increase risk of adulthood physical and sexual assault. Implications for tribe-specific interventions are discussed.     

Reversing the historical tide of iatrogenic harm: A therapeutic jurisprudence analysis of increases in arrests of domestic batterers and rapists

Therapeutic jurisprudence (TJ) proposes that the law is a social force that can heal or cause harm to parties in a legal action. Historically, women victims of intimate partner rape and domestic violence could not seek justice in the legal system because police, like other actors in the justice system, treated these offenses as private matters or fabrications. In domestic violence and intimate rape cases, TJ is concerned with the needs of the victims, and how the law and police play a role in increasing their well-being. In this article, we use a TJ approach to the study of police responsiveness to victims of these offenses by investigating arrests of the offenders pursuant to law reforms that encourage or mandate arrest. Given that in these offenses, victims have the lowest reporting rates of any violent crime, the victim decision to call the police represents an expectation that the mere physical presence of a police officer may redefine the nature of the violence from a private conflict to a societal wrong that will not be tolerated. Police partnership with and treatment of the victim with respect and dignity can change the dynamics of the violence, terminate the violence, and set the criminal justice process in motion by arresting the offender in most cases. Police arrest, and subsequent prosecution and conviction, sends a message to offenders that society does not tolerate their violence, and allows the victim to begin to heal. Yet, past research indicates that police are less likely to arrest intimates than acquaintances and strangers in misdemeanor and aggravated assault, rape, and sexual assault cases. Using the National Incidence Reporting System (NIBRS) for the year 2000, we examine police arrests of intimate partner rape and domestic violence in jurisdictions with mandatory and presumptive arrest policies compared to police arrests in full discretion jurisdictions. We also ascertain whether arrest rates are higher for strangers and acquaintances than for intimates in misdemeanor and aggravated assault, kidnapping, and rape and sexual assault. Third, we determine whether police arrests of intimate partner rape is more likely if there is evidence of violence, injury to the victim, and use of a weapon. Our multivariate findings suggest that both the rape and the domestic violence reform movements have reversed the tide of historical negative treatment of female victims of these offenses. Logistic regression analysis indicates that police agencies in mandatory and preferred arrest jurisdictions increase the odds of arrest for domestic violence incidents and violations of orders of protection, compared to police agencies in jurisdictions with permissive/discretionary arrest policies. In addition, intimate violence increases the odds of arrest by 98%; forcible rape accompanied by simple assault or kidnapping increases the odds of arrest by 467 and 222%, respectively whereas forcible fondling accompanied by simple assault increases the odds of arrest by 293%. We discuss the implications of our findings for future law reform as well as TJ.     

Reforming rape laws

Almost all legislative evaluations and impact analyses in the area of rape reform have involved the U.S. This article examines the effects of rape reform legislation introduced in Canada in 1983. In that year the offenses of rape and indecent assault were replaced with three new offenses of sexual assault. As in other jurisdictions in the U.S., the Canadian reforms were designed to achieve several aims. These included increasing the number of victims reporting to the police, reducing the proportion of reports classified by the police as unfounded, and increasing the number of cases in which a charge is laid. This article presents a time-series analysis of reports of crimes of sexual aggression over a 10-year period around passage of the reform legislation. The results indicate that there was a significant increase in the number of reports of these crimes concurrent with the passage of the legislation. Moreover, the increase in sexual assault reports exceeds by a significant margin the increase in reports made of other personal injury offenses (e.g., assault). However, the legislation has had no discernible effect upon the immediate criminal justice response to reports of sexual aggression: Neither the percentage of reports classified as founded, nor the percentage of reported incidents resulting in the laying of a charge has changed.The authors would like to gratefully acknowledge the comments made upon an earlier draft of this article by Ed Renner, the editor of the journal, and an anonymous reviewer. This research was supported by the Department of Justice Canada; the authors thank the Department for permission to publish these data. Finally we would like to thank the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics for providing the data.     

Rape reform in Canada: Public knowledge and opinion

Rape reform legislation in Canada was designed to change: 1) the way sexual assault cases were processed by the criminal justice system and 2) public opinion about crimes of sexual aggression. This article reports findings from a representative survey of the Canadian public and an experimental analysis of the effects of the legislation on public knowledge and attitudes. Results from the nation-wide survey indicated that most people are unaware of the semantic shift (from the old language of rape and indecent assault to the new crimes of sexual assault). However, there is awareness of the substantive legal changes introduced by the rape reform legislation (such as the fact that husbands are no longer immune from criminal changes involving their wives). It is clear that rape reform legislation has affected public knowledge of statutory reforms regarding crimes of sexual aggression. Results from the experimental component of this research show that the new sexual assault label has not achieved one of the important goals, namely of changing public perceptions of the nature of crimes of sexual aggression. Indeed, one negative effect predicted by feminist writers seems to have emerged: sentencing decisions made by the public for the offense of rape were less severe when the incident was described as a sexual assault.     

Differential predictors of intimate partner sexual coercion versus physical assault perpetration

ABSTRACT

The current study attempted to strengthen existing literature regarding predictors of perpetrating intimate partner sexual violence to determine if there are unique predictors of sexual violence that differentiate it from physical abuse. It was hypothesised that men’s controlling, dominant and jealousy behaviours, and verbal aggression would significantly predict increased intimate partner sexual coercion and physical assault perpetration. These predictors were expected to be more predictive of sexual coercion than physical assault perpetration. Couples were recruited from the community (N?=?159) in a cross-sectional study recruiting couples with a violent male partner. Results demonstrated that men’s controlling behaviour was a significant predictor of sexual coercion and physical assault perpetration and behavioural jealousy was a significant predictor of sexual coercion perpetration. No predictors studied better predicted sexual coercion more than physical assault perpetration. These findings suggest that sexual coercion may be another type of physical assault without unique predictors.     

Perpetuating myths of women as false complainants in rape cases in India: culture V. The law

ABSTRACT

Despite public outrage over our global “rape culture,” sexual offences continue to be characterised by low levels of reporting, prosecution, and conviction in many countries. Attrition rates for sexual assault internationally, although varying in pattern, are consistently high. As a signatory to the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (DEVAW), the Indian Government acknowledges the need to afford better protection to victims of gender violence. Assessing the effect of rape law reform in India, using crime statistics and a survey of recent judgments from the Delhi District Courts, the author argues that the legislature has failed systematically to address the many injustices experienced by women who allege rape. The Indian Parliament responding to the moral panic generated by the Delhi gang rape case with knee-jerk reforms, focused mainly on increasing penalties, maintaining an outmoded view of rape as a crime against morality rather than as a violation of gender rights and human rights. By closely investigating the sociocultural context in which sexual crimes against women occur in India, the author reveals that India’s “cultural” arguments for rejecting further reform (such as repeal of the marital rape immunity) are merely entrenched gender biases, bearing strong parallels to nineteenth century English common law perceptions of women who allege rape as a class of false complainants.     

Perceptually contemporaneous offenses: Gender and fear of crime among African-American university students

There is consensus in the fear of crime literature that women are more afraid of crime than men. Research has explored perceptually contemporaneous offenses to explain the differences in male and female fear, and to explore the possibility that different crimes shape their respective fears. Victimization studies consistently find that African-American citizens are at a higher risk of crime and fear of crime. Using a 2013 sample of a Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) in the south, the present study will 1) report gender differences in fear of crime, 2) test whether gender differences in fear of crime are explained by perceptually contemporaneous offenses, and 3) assess whether or not men and women share the same master offenses.     

The Case of Fearful Women:

Women's reported level of fear of crime is three times higher than reported by men. Crime surveys though show that it is young men who are at greatest risk to violent victimisation. This paper explores this criminological conundrum of women's fear of crime. It proposes that the analysis and the construction of the concept 'fear of crime' fail to capture women's lived experiences of sexual and physical violence. It further examines the crime prevention advice to women and concludes that this advice is founded upon faulty assumptions about what types of situations pose the greatest danger to women's sexual and physical safety. Conventional criminology and its adherence to the view of violent crime as 'street crime,' the paper concludes, distorts and sensationalizes violence against women.     

Beyond Traditional Definitions of Assault: Expanding Our Focus to Include Sexually Coercive Experiences

Traditionally, studies examining sexual assault have not considered experiences of coerced consensual sex. This study sought to compare women who endorsed experiences of coerced sexual intercourse with women who reported more traditionally defined experiences of sexual assault and with a group of women who had experienced neither sexual assault nor coercion. The authors hypothesized that women who had experienced sexual coercion would show symptom elevations on a measure of interpersonal trauma-related symptoms that were more consistent with sexual assault victims than with non-victims. Among a sample of undergraduate college women (N=300), women who endorsed coerced sexual intercourse (8.7%) were compared to women endorsing experiences meeting the legal definition of rape (21%), women endorsing childhood sexual abuse (11.7%), women reporting both rape and childhood sexual abuse (6.0%), and women reporting no victimization experiences (52.7%). Analysis of the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI; Briere, 1995) clinical subscales confirmed that women who reported coerced sexual intercourse endorsed symptoms levels more consistent with the adult rape group than with the non-victim group.     

“Memorialization Laws in the United Kingdom: A Response to Fear or an Increased Occurrence?”

Issues of sexual abuse, predation and rape have received an increased degree of attention over the last decade and as a result have overshadowed similarly offensive crimes. Various highly publicized cases of sexual violence against women and children have gripped both the United States and the United Kingdom and have resulted in the implementation of sexual violence laws. Media coverage of an ‘epidemic’ of sexual violence has led some to question whether the frenzy surrounding these publicized cases has created a “fear factor” among parents and caregivers, begging the question as to whether the incidence of sexual violence has increased or whether the heightened sensitivity is a result of increased media reporting. This article examines approximately 12 years of aggregate sexual abuse prevalence data (crimes reported to the police) in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and compared prevalence change points and sexual offense law implementation. The article then examines the possible theory of whether Sarah’s Law could potentially to be a result of increased fear or a moral panic. Findings indicate sex crime rates were declining prior to the law’s implementation, lending cautious support to the proposition that the genesis of Sarah’s Law may have been due to fear, rather than actual increases in sexual crimes.     

Not Just a Boy's Club

Abstract

The extant literature suggests that habitual criminality among women is rare and that female career criminals are ostensibly nonexistent. Using the criminal records of 500 male and female adult recidivists, this study applies the concept of career criminality to women and describes how this application has specific gendered elements. Like their male peers, women are chronic, versatile offenders engaged in violent, property, and public-order offending. Women are disproportionately engaged in forgery, fraud, and prostitution whereas men are disproportionately engaged in rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. No gender differences existed for a variety of additional offenses and criminal justice system statuses. However, significant gender differences exist for social demographic characteristics, such as age and timing of onset, and criminal career parameter indicators, such as span of criminal career. These data and analyses indicate that the career criminal classification has important implications for criminal career research and gender-based criminology.     

Understanding rape and sexual assault: 20 years of progress and future directions

During the past 20 years, researchers have documented the widespread problem of rape in American society. Approximately one in four women are raped in their adult lifetime, which causes severe psychological distress and long-term physical health problems. The impact of sexual assault extends far beyond rape survivors as their family, friends, and significant others are also negatively affected. Moreover, those who help rape victims, such as rape victim advocates, therapists, as well as sexual assault researchers, can experience vicarious trauma. Future research and advocacy should focus on improving the community response to rape and the prevention of sexual assault.     

SEX CRIMES IN THE SUBWAY

This article describes the nature, extent, and empirical ramifications of nonfelonious sex crimes on the New York City subway. Nonfelonious sex crimes are defined as those offenses designated “sexual abuse” and “public lewdness” in the revised New York Penal Code of 1967. excluding sexual abuse in the first degree. Offenders are predominantly black and Hispanic; victims white, youthful, and unexceptional in looks. Contrary to psychiatric stereotypes, 50% of recidivists in rhese crime categories prove to have arrest records for violent crimes. including nonsexual ones: and sexual abuse and public lewdness recidivists tend to commit either offense interchangeably.