Attitudes toward rape: A comparative analysis of police, rapists, crisis counselors, and citizens.

Abstract

Although attitudes toward rape have been regarded as important in rape research, few data have been collected on these attitudes. The present investigation was designed to (a) study the dimensionality of rape attitudes; (b) explore the relationships between perceptions of rape and background characteristics of rapists, police, crisis counselors, and citizens; and (c) determine how these groups might differ with regard to rape attitudes. Data collected from 1,448 subjects showed that the respondent groups were similar in their structures of rape attitudes. Sex, race, and marital status were identified as the most important characteristics for predicting rape attitudes; within the respondent groups, other characteristics were found to be important. Highly significant differences were also found among the groups in their perceptions of rape. The counselors differed from the police, citizens, and rapists in their views of rape, while citizens and police were most similar. No differences were found between the police and rapists on half of the attitudinal dimensions. Implications of the results in terms of attitudes toward rape are discussed.Few issues elicit such a wide variety of opinions and beliefs among the general populace as does the topic of rape. Rape can and does mean many different things to many people, and sometimes it means many contradictory things. Evidence regarding the variety of people's perceptions of rape is readily apparent by reviewing any number of popular magazines (Calvert, 1974;Medea & Thompson, 1974;Salerno; or best-selling books (Brownmiller, 197Sa).Recently, it has been suggested that the perceptions or attitudes of people toward rape are important for understanding not only their reactions to the act itself but also their be-Special appreciation is extended to

Behind the Blue Line: Investigating Police Officers’ Attitudes Toward Rape

“…It is possible that the lack of statistical significance stems from the low number of participants comprising each group (Feldman-Summers and Palmer 1980). Similar to Field (1978) and Feldman-Summers and Palmer (1980), Brown and King (1998) compared police officers" attitudes toward women and rape to those of college students. Each group consisted equally of women and men.…”

“…He and other researchers (Field 1978;Burt 1980) contend that criminal justice agents share general sexist beliefs about the crime of rape and rape victims. The more a victim or the characteristics of the assault deviate from this preconceived idea, the less likely police and prosecutors are to devote extensive time and energy to processing the case (LaFree 1989; Hazelwood and Burgess 1995).…”

“…These studies find that police officers" attitudes differ in meaningful ways from those of citizens and social service personnel. Field (1978) used a quantitative survey designed to assess attitudes toward women and rape along with knowledge of rape laws to patrol police officers, community members, female counselors in rape crisis centers, and committed rapists in a state hospital. He found police officers" attitudes toward rape to be more similar to rapists" attitudes than to the attitudes of citizens or rape crisis counselors.…”

Adolescent Victims and Intergenerational Issues in Sexual Abuse

“…Many rape prevention programs work under the assumption that the development of empathy will increase prosocial behavior and decrease aggression (Schewe & O'Donohue, 1993). Measures such as the Attitudes Towards Rape scale (Feild, 1978) and the Rape Empathy Scale (Deitz, Blackwell, Daley, & Bentley, 1982) can give some indication of an adolescent's beliefs. In addition, knowledge about their fantasies and their initiation into sexual experiences should be obtained.…”

A review of cognitive factors in the etiology of rape

“…If men in the general population with a high level of rape proclivity have specific rape-supportive attitudes and beliefs, this is to be expected to be the case in convicted rapists as well. In an early study, Feild (1978) examined this issue by comparing rapist's attitudes toward rape with those of citizens, police officers, and rape counselors. To this end, he developed the Attitudes Towards Rape Scale.…”