NCJ Number
224417
Date Published
2008
Length
27 pages
Annotation
After presenting data on reporting, prosecution, and convictions in rape cases across Europe in support of the argument that rape law reform has not had its intended effect, this chapter draws on recent critical scholarship in presenting possible explanations for this finding; some of the paradoxes and contradictions related to this issue are discussed, along with their implications for social, feminist, and criminological theory.
Abstract
Although there is no consistency in patterns of reporting rape across Europe, in most European countries, conviction rates for rape declined in the 1990s, particularly in Western Europe, where the most extensive rape law reform occurred. The changes in statute law, evidential rules, and even police procedures for which activists campaigned in the 1970s and 1980s failed to result in more convictions of those charged with rape and could have had the paradoxical effect of holding fewer men to account for rape. This pattern occurred across adversarial and investigative systems. The fact that successive legal and procedural reforms have failed to increase the proportion of cases that result in prosecution and/ or conviction suggests that deeper social and cultural processes are driving how the justice system responds to rape reports. One of the factors is the persistence of a culture of skepticism among police regarding a woman’s claim of having been raped. So long as those who implement the laws retain outmoded understandings of rape, masculinity, femininity, and sexuality, cases will continue to be handled the same way, regardless of law reform, since criminal justice personnel retain the discretion to decide whether evidence is sufficient to bring charges, pursue prosecutions, and convict defendants. The view that rape is primarily a stranger-to-stranger crime in which injurious force is used to gain submission from a resisting victim persists. 6 figures, 3 tables, 17 notes, and 53 references