Myths and legends: The reality of rape offences reported to a UK police force

Rape myths have been defined as “descriptive or prescriptive beliefs about rape (i.e., about its causes, context, consequences, perpetrators, victims, and their interaction) that serve to deny, downplay, or justify sexual violence that men commit against women” ( Bohner, Eyssel, Pina, Siebler, & Tendayi Viki, 2009 , p. 19). Such myths attribute blame to the victim for their rape (e.g., that women who dress scantily provoke rape), suggest that many claims of rape are false (e.g., that women often make up rape accusations in revenge against the alleged perpetrator), remove blame from the perpetrator (e.g., implying men cannot control their sex drive), and suggest that rape only happens to particular kinds of women (e.g., only women who are promiscuous get raped; Bohner et al., 2009).

Rape myths are held by people of both sexes, all ages, and across races ( Burt, 1980; Johnson, Kuck, & Schander, 1997; McGee, O’Higgins, Garavan, & Conroy, 2011; Suarez & Gadalla, 2010 ). For example, McGee et al. (2011) found over 40% of their sample believed that rape accusations are often fabricated. They also exist in those who deal with rape cases professionally, such as police officers ( Goodman-Delahunty & Graham, 2011; Page, 2007; Sleath & Bull, 2012 ). Such myth acceptance has been not only found for victims ( Peterson & Muehlenhard, 2004 ) but also perpetrators of sexual assault ( Marshall & Hambley, 1996).

Acceptance of rape myths can have serious effects on people's behaviour and attitudes towards rape offences. Victims of rape who hold rape myths may not acknowledge their experiences as rape. Rape is legally defined in England and Wales as the intentional penetration of another person's vagina, anus, or mouth with the perpetrator's penis without consent or reasonable belief of consent ( Sexual Offences Act, 2003, s.1). Peterson and Muehlenhard (2004) found that, amongst women who had had an experience that would legally be defined as rape, acceptance of specific rape myths affected whether they perceived the experience as rape or not. For example, women who had not fought their attacker and accepted the rape myth that a victim had to fight back for the offence to be classified as rape were less likely to say they had been raped, despite the fact that, legally, they had been.

Acceptance of similar myths involving a codified stereotype of a crime also affects the attitudes of police officers. In a written mock trial in which a female defendant was charged with the murder of her husband and had pleaded not guilty on the grounds of legitimate self-defence due to intimate partner violence, police officers’ opinions were affected by how prototypical the defendant was described to have been ( Herrera, Valor-Segura, & Expósito, 2012 ). When the defendant was described as a prototypical battered woman (e.g, a shy mother who dresses poorly), she was judged as having less control over the situation than when she was described as a non-prototypical battered woman (e.g., a confident, well-dressed, businesswoman), despite no difference in the evidence against her. The police officers’ levels of sexism, empathy, their perceptions of their own personal responsibility, and of the seriousness of the crime also seem to have an effect on whether officers felt they should file a crime report, lay charges, and make an arrest in an intimate partner violence situation despite the victim's unwillingness to press charges or not ( Gracia, García, & Lila, 2011; Lila, Gracia, & García, 2013 ). Therefore, some police officers may continue to have crime schema based on stereotypes ( Goodman-Delahunty & Graham, 2011; Page, 2007; Sleath & Bull, 2012 ), and acceptance of these myths and the degree to which a victim, offender, and offence fits with the stereotype held may affect attitudes and behaviours towards the offence, victim, and investigation.

Rape myth acceptance has also been found to influence the reporting behaviour of victims ( Du Mont, Miller, & Myhr, 2003 ). For instance, in the USA, Clay-Warner and McMahon-Howard (2009) found victims were twice as likely to report to the police rapes committed in public (as in the ‘real rape’ myth, discussed below) or through unlawful entry into a home as those that occurred elsewhere. They also found rapes carried out by strangers more likely to be reported than those carried out by partners or ex-partners, and that increases in reporting were associated with both the victim sustaining severe injuries (corroborated by Du Mont, Miller, & Myhr, 2003 ) and the use of weapons. There are a number of reasons why offences that do not fit rape myths may be reported less often; for example, victims of domestic rape may face a higher risk or fear of repeat victimisation by their partners or ex-partners which may not be the case for stranger rapes, or victims may view offences involving severe physical violence as more serious than those which are less violent. However, other reasons relate to rape myth acceptance; if victims do not interpret their experiences as rape due to their partial belief in rape myths, they may not report the rape. Biased reporting may in itself lead to perpetuation of rape myths, as more of those that fit the stereotype will be made public than those that do not fit the stereotype ( McGregor, Wiebe, Marion, & Livingstone, 2000 ). Additionally, some victims may not actually believe in rape myths themselves, but may believe that the criminal justice system will not take their report seriously if their case does not fit with rape myths. Injured victims may have felt that this physical proof of violence (part of the ‘real rape’ myth, discussed below) corroborated their stories, and implied that their case was a ‘real’ rape case, and so the criminal justice system might take their allegations more seriously ( Du Mont et al., 2003).

Rape myth acceptance relates to the perpetrating of rape and to increased self-reported rape proclivity. A number of studies using male student samples from around the world have found that increased rape myth acceptance (as measured by self-report scales) correlates with a higher likelihood of reporting that they would commit rape in a written mock date-rape scenario ( Bohner et al., 1998; Chiroro, Bohner, Tendayi Viki, & Jarvis, 2004 ). This finding can be criticised as a hypothetical outcome in a non-criminal population. However studies with incarcerated populations have found a relationship between rape myth acceptance and the committing of actual rape offences. DeGue, DiLillo, and Scalora (2010) found that both coercive and aggressive rapists accepted rape myths to a higher degree than incarcerated men who reported having only had consensual sex. However, it is not possible to determine whether these men endorsed rape myths so strongly before they committed rape or whether their acceptance of rape myths was increased by the perpetration of the offence itself in an attempt to alleviate their guilt. Bohner et al. (1998) addressed this question by presenting a rape myth acceptance scale either before or after a written, mock date-rape scenario. They found that increased rape myth acceptance was only related to increased rape proclivity when the participants thought about rape myths before making a decision on the written date-rape scenario, whereas rape myth acceptance and rape proclivity were not related if the rape myth acceptance scale was completed after the written scenario. Bohner et al. (1998) concluded that this suggests a causal relationship between rape myth acceptance and intention to rape. However, given how pervasive rape myths are and the inconsistency of the relationship between attitudes and behaviour, it is unlikely that the accepting of rape myths of itself would lead someone to commit the offence. Instead these myths may help maintain misunderstandings regarding rape, which could affect how seriously a person would contemplate carrying out a rape.

Mock juror studies show rape myth acceptance to be associated with jurors’ opinions of victims and their judgements of guilt in simulated rape cases ( Stewart & Jacquin, 2010 ). In studies using rape myth acceptance scales, greater endorsement of these constructs correlated with more responsibility being attributed to the victim and less to the alleged perpetrator of rape ( Hammond, Berry, & Rodriguez, 2011 ), and lower ratings of guilt for defendants ( Stewart & Jacquin, 2010 ). However, in a sample of real English and Welsh cases, Munro and Kelly (2009) found that those in which the victim was in a current romantic or professional relationship with the perpetrator, or where the victim and offender were friends, resulted in convictions more frequently than cases which involved different victim-offender relationships (including stranger rapes). This could be explained by these stranger rapes not fitting the ‘real rape’ myth closely enough (see below) or that rape myth acceptance may affect jurors’ opinions of the victims and perpetrators in a laboratory setting, but when exposed to a full trial, these myths have a less substantial effect on the legal outcomes.

Rape myths, therefore, can affect decisions to report, perpetrate, or convict for rape, and cause difficulties for organisations seeking to reduce the incidence of rape, increase the reporting rate, or ensure fair trials. One way of decreasing the prevalence of rape myth acceptance is education ( Anderson & Whiston, 2005 ), which can be bolstered by empirical studies stating the true incidence of reported rapes that fit the rape myth stereotypes. Currently, there are very few published studies that have examined this and none focusing on the ‘real rape’ myth, and so the present study examined the proportion of reported rapes that correspond to the ‘real rape’ myth in a large British county. This myth maintains that ‘real rape’ (or ‘traditional’ rape as Estrich, 1986 terms it) involves a stranger attacking a victim at night in an isolated, outdoor area. The myth includes the use of extreme violence (often including the use of a weapon) and the victim strongly resisting the attack physically and sustaining injuries ( Clay-Warner & McMahon-Howard, 2009; Du Mont et al., 2003 ). In a comparison with studies of real stranger rape cases, Sleath and Woodhams (2014) found students overestimated how frequently aspects of the ‘real rape’ myth (specifically, the violent offender and physically resistant victim behaviours) occur in rape cases. Thus, expectations of victim and offender behaviours appear to comply with the ‘real rape’ myth more than real cases of rape do.

Acceptance of rape myths has been thought to serve gender-specific functions ( Bohner et al., 2009 ), and the notion of a ‘real rape’ myth may serve similar functions. For men who uphold such views, rape myths are thought to help self-esteem by aiding them to perceive their own acts of sexual dominance as normal and not rape, neutralising their behaviours in such a way to enable them to morally disengage and avoid perceiving themselves as violating norms of sexual behaviour ( Bandura, 1999; Bohner et al., 1998 ). The ‘real rape’ myth does this by promoting a very narrow definition of rape. It is possible, therefore, that men who endorse this rape myth may believe that any other form of sexual aggression (for example, having sex with their partners or acquaintances without their consent, or threatening a person verbally into having sex with them) does not violate sexual norms because it does not fit the ‘real rape’ myth, and thus is not rape. For women, rape myths also affect self-esteem, but do so in relation to the likelihood of becoming a victim. Women who accept rape myths may feel protected from the risk of rape ( Peterson & Muehlenhard, 2004 ) and feel the victim is in some way to blame for their rape due to their risky behaviour. For example, the ‘real rape’ myth may aid women in feeling safe by making them believe they are invulnerable to rape as long as they do not walk around at night alone. Acceptance of the ‘real rape’ myth may also lead to women taking fewer precautions against rape. Being less aware of situations in which they are more likely to be raped ( Suarez & Gadalla, 2010 ), women may not avoid genuinely high risk situations.

Previous studies have examined aspects of the ‘real rape’ myth. Stranger rapes have been repeatedly found to account for less than half of all reported rape cases in studies from both the UK and the USA ( Feist, Ashe, Lawrence, McPhee, & Wilson, 2007; Greenfeld, 1997; Kelly, Lovatt, & Regan, 2005; Stanko & Williams, 2009 ). These studies have also suggested that young women of between 16 and 29 years of age are at particular risk of rape ( Feist et al., 2007; Kelly et al., 2005 ) and that very few rapes occur outdoors (e.g., 7% and 17.3% in Feist et al., 2007 and Greenfeld, 1997 , respectively). However, this finding may not be universal; Kelly et al. (2005) found 32% of rape offences were reported to have occurred in public places, but this was not further defined. The majority of rapes are reported to take place at night ( Feist et al., 2007; Greenfeld, 1997 ). However, findings regarding victims’ sustained injuries vary significantly, with two-thirds of victims sustaining no injuries in Feist et al.’s (2007) sample, but the same proportion sustaining injuries in Kelly et al.’s (2005) sample; that both of these are reports of official statistics indicates the ambiguity in the area.

Sleath and Woodhams (2014) conducted a review of studies examining real cases of stranger rape in order to conduct a comparison with participants’ expectations of victim and offender behaviours. From their review, the frequency of different behaviours in real cases was quite variable; victims appear to physically resist their attacker (by struggling, hitting, kicking, or punching them, or trying to take the weapon away) in between 5.3% and 63.6% of cases, depending on the behaviour. Various violent offender behaviours (ripping the victim's clothes, binding or tying them up, gagging them, slapping, punching, or kicking the victim) were similarly variable (from 19.8% to 68.2% of cases). A weapon was shown to the victim in a weighted average of 42.97% of cases included in Sleath and Woodhams’ (2014) review. The presence of weapons in other samples of documented rape cases has been found to be even lower, with a mere 4% of cases involving a weapon in Feist et al.’s (2007) English and Welsh sample, compared to one in every 16 cases involving a weapon in Greenfeld's (1997) US sample. Finally, Feist et al. (2007) found alcohol consumption was commonly related to stranger rape cases, with the highest proportion of highly intoxicated victims having been attacked by a stranger. Thus, research has shown the ‘real rape’ myth to generally be an inaccurate representation of all reported rapes.

The present study examines cases reported to a UK police force over a period of two years, analyses the ‘real rape’ myth in a more typical British region than previous studies, and considers all aspects of the myth. When comparing the number of crimes committed per 1,000 population for the year ending September 2012, the county from which the current data was drawn differed on average by 0.33 to the national average ( Office for National Statistics, 2012 ). However, London differed by 5.50, showing the county from which the current data was drawn to have crime statistics that are much more comparable to the national average than London. Additionally, this research examines not only the victim-offender relationship (e.g., stranger vs. known), but also the time of day of the offences (e.g., night-time vs. other times of the day), their location (e.g., isolated outdoor spaces vs. other locations), how offenders manipulate their victims (e.g., using force and weapons vs. alternative manipulations, such as threats), and the level of physical injuries sustained by the victim (e.g., serious injuries sustained vs. less serious or none). This was accomplished by obtaining the information regarding each of these aspects of extra-familial rape cases from official police data, as this is the primary behavioural record of the reported events.