Filtering by
- All Subjects: Sexual Assault
- Creators: School of Criminology and Criminal Justice
The current study examines the effects that college students' personal characteristics, such as age, sex, gender, or race/ethnicity, have on students’ perceptions of perceived victim blameworthiness. This study also examines how college students’ perceptions of blameworthiness change after being exposed to real life sexual assault vignettes that tap into issues surrounding rape myths. Specifically, I assess blameworthiness perceptions surrounding rape myths regarding clothing, drinking, and various situational characteristics. Blameworthiness perceptions were examined through a survey with pre-test and post-test questions that occurred before and after the student reviewed different sexual assault vignettes. Descriptive statistics show that the majority of college students, after being introduced to the vignettes, reduced their blameworthiness beliefs. Results from the regression analysis show that few individual characteristics are associated with changes in blameworthiness beliefs. Overall, these findings suggest that exposure to sexual assault vignettes have an effect on how individuals perceive victim blameworthiness.
The concept of rape has been a prominent part of historical U.S. criminal law, and legislation and statutes have changed significantly over time. Despite numerous reforms, however, there is still a lack of reporting, arrests, and convictions for sexual assault cases. This is due to several factors influencing the judgement of criminal justice actors, such as how cases are handled by police officers and prosecutors, who decide whether to further investigate a case, send the case to prosecution for sentencing, or bring the case to trial. Some of these influences include legal and extra-legal factors and certain beliefs or assumptions about sexual assault victims, which affect these officials’ discretionary decisions. As a result, criminal justice officials tend to dismiss or unfound a sexual assault case, especially with acquaintance rape, contributing to the substantial lack of arrests and convictions. These facts, which are examined in the paper, emphasize the need to reassess our criminal justice system's current response to sexual assault cases. This includes adjusting the evaluation markers for prosecutors, improving the communication between the relevant criminal justice actors, and implementing evaluations of prosecutorial ethics and community satisfaction.