NCJ Number
218052
Journal
Violence and Victims Volume: 22 Issue: 1 Dated: 2007 Pages: 43-51
Date Published
2007
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This study compared the impacts of multiple-offender ("gang") rape with single-offender rapes for a large, diverse sample of female victims.
Abstract
A comparison of trauma histories (e.g., child sexual abuse), assault characteristics (e.g., offender violence), and outcomes (sexual acts and physical injuries), as well as current functioning (e.g., posttraumatic stress disorder and lifetime suicide attempts) showed that gang-rape victims had worse outcomes overall compared with victims of single offenders. There were few differences in informal support-seeking by victims of the two types of rape, but gang-rape victims had more negative perceptions of their social networks. Gang-rape victims more often reported their attacks to police and sought medical and mental health sources than single-offender victims; however, they received more negative social reactions from others they told about their assaults. Recommendations are offered for future research and for intervention with gang-rape victims. The study analyzed data from a mail survey collected during the first wave of a longitudinal study of sexual-assault survivors' recovery experiences. Respondents were recruited through fliers, advertisements, and notices distributed on college campuses, in the community, and at mental health agencies and rape crisis centers over a 1-year period in the Chicago metropolitan area. A total of 1,084 women (90 percent) returned the survey. The survey measured demographic information, assault characteristics, trauma-related outcomes, assault aftermath, and current functioning. 1 table and 20 references