Sexual Victimization: Victims, Offenders, Interventions And Legal Reforms

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Sexual Victimization Victims, Offenders,
Interventions And Legal Reforms

• Dr. Michelle L. Meloy

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Sex Crimes Defined

• Rape gendered term that narrowly defines an
  illegal sex crime as forced intercourse
• Statutory Rape intercourse with a partner who is
  under the legal age of consent
• Sodomy anal sexual penetration. Laws were used
  primarily to criminalize homosexual acts
• Sexual Assault gender neutral term that more
  broadly defines forced sexual contact. Most
  states use only this term now

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Sex Crimes Defined

• Date Rape forced or coerced sexual contact among
  dating or prior dating partners.
• Acquaintance Rape victim and offender have some
  prior relationship
• Marital Rape forced sexual contact among married
  or cohabitating partners
• 1990s marital rape was finally ruled illegal in
  all 50 states

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Prevalence Incidence

• Difficult to calculate accurately
• UCR Most underreported crime
• NCVS Certain types are over reported by victims
  while others are underreported
• Children Unaware of legal protections little
  power over abusers

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Prevalence Incidence

• 1984 study 44 of college age women were victims
  of rape/attempted rape
• 1988 study 22 of all US women were raped at
  some point in their lives
• 1996 study 1 in 6 women are raped and 1 in 33
  men are raped (defined as forced oral, anal or
  vaginal contact)

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Victims of Sex Crimes

• Most victims know their abusers
• 90 of victims are female
• 1 in 3 victims are minors
• Teens, preteens, and adult women are more likely
  to be rape victims
• Younger children are more likely to be sodomized
  or fondled
• Sodomy is the only sex crime that occurs to males
  (54) more often than to females (46)

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Victimization risk factors

• Female gender-power inequality
• Youth 16-24
• Alcohol consumption
• Nighttime
• Warmer months
• Black women stranger attacks
• White women acquaintance attacks

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Causes of sexual violence Rape myths

• The-victim-is-not-really-a-victim victim blaming
• Alcohol and drugs cause rape strongly correlated
  but it is not causal
• The-drugs-made-me-do-it used to sedate victims
  or blame their behavior on the drugs or alcohol
• Rapists are sick or mentally ill evidence does
  not support this
• It-was-just-a-misunderstanding
  miscommunication does not explain the vast
  majority of date or other rape forms

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Causes of sexual violence Socialization

• Gender socialization teaches males to be
  aggressive and females to be submissive
• Males who are seen as powerful and assertive are
  viewed as leaders
• Females who are seen as passive and defer to male
  authority are viewed as good girls
• Male aggressive sense of entitlement has been
  related to a rape culture

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Causes of sexual violence Popular culture and
media cues

• Media depiction of women and girls in TV, movies,
  videos, gaming, cyberspace often mixes sex with
  violence and portrays females as (eventually)
  enjoying the rough sex
• Is MTV the date rape channel?
• Young girls boys are often sexualized in
  advertisements and other media outlets

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Causes of sexual violence Medical theories

• Rapists and sex offenders of children are
  believed to suffer from a mental psychopathology
• Psychopathology used to explain why some commit
  sex crimes and others do not the psychological
  disorders and personality traits
• Neurological impairment or hormone abnormalities
  are also studied
• Psychotropic medications and surgical or chemical
  castration are often used

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Causes of sexual violence Medical theories,
continued

• Cases of mental illness exist among some sex
  offenders, but it is the exception
• Research failed to establish a personality
  type/disorder that distinguishes rapists from
  non-rapists
• However, there are personality traits correlated
  with sex offending behavior

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Sex Offenders of Children

• Child molestation is a criminal action
• Pedophilia is a psychological disorder
• Pedophilia is a psychological diagnosis
  characterized by a sexual fixation on children
• Most offenders who sexually victimize children do
  not meet the psychological diagnosis of pedophilia

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The fast facts about sexual violence

• Most sexual victimization is not caused by a
  mental illness
• Most sexual assaults occur between people who
  know one another
• Stranger attacks are rare
• Rape myths perpetuate victim blaming may
  encourage abuse

• Most sex offenders were not molested as children
  (1 in 3)
• College age women are at an increased risk of
  sexual attack
• Intoxication is related to increase risk of being
  victimized risk of violence

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Rape Reform Legislation

• Beginning in 1970s every state made changes to
  rape laws
• All reforms focused on victims role
• Reforms were substantive (deterrence of sex
  crimes, increase reporting by victims, decrease
  personal attacks of victims, increase prosecution
  conviction rates) and symbolic (improve the
  system-related treatment of rape victims send
  the message that women control their own bodies)

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Rape Reform Legislation

• Redefinition of the offense
• spousal exemptions repealed gender neutral
  language
• Evidentiary reforms
• elimination of corroboration requirements
• rape shield laws enacted
• Reforms in statutory age
• Evidentiary reforms
• elimination of corroboration requirements
• rape shield laws enacted

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Criminal Justice Response to Sexual Violence

• Western cj systems rarely arrest, charge and
  convict sex offenders (i.e., most occurs in the
  context of intimate and dating situations)-
  marginal, if any, improvements with reform
  efforts
• Police are most likely to dismiss rape
  allegations when the victims have violated social
  normative behavior
• Sex crimes between strangers viewed as more
  serious more likely to arrest, charge, convict
  and sentence punitively
• Real rapists and child molesters are more
  likely to receive prison sentences
• Parole and probation is often used in conjunction
  with therapy

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Does Treatment Work?

• Sex offender treatment can be very successful at
  reducing recidivism for some types of offenders
• All sex offenders are not the same and their
  likelihood of recovery is not the same
• Pedophiles are extremely difficult to
  rehabilitate. Some say it can not be done at all