NCJ Number
79376
Journal
Criminology Volume: 19 Issue: 2 Dated: (August 1981) Pages: 195-209
Date Published
1981
Length
15 pages
Annotation
This article considers the feasibility of symbolic redefinition of criminal acts so as to make social disapproval and self-condemnation more probable; the crime of rape is used to illustrate this approach.
Abstract
The main issue considered is if collective efforts at symbolic redefinition of crime can be mobilized through the political process and thereby prevent some crimes from occurring that would otherwise take place. The deterrence of rape illustrates this idea. At present, the intended deterrent to forcible rape is heavy legal penalties for conviction, despite widespread doubts about the likelihood of the rapist's arrest or conviction. However, this role of the rapist is attractive to some men because (1) they feel intense hostility toward women, (2) they perceive the rapist as a daring male loaded with machismo, and (3) the likelihood of experiencing the heavy statutory penalties is small. But if men attracted to the rapist role because of personal psychic needs nonetheless believed that rapists were psychiatrically ill, they might be deterred by a self-administered sanction: the desire to avoid a self-definition as crazy. Ways to symbolize society's conviction that the rapist is sick rather than wickedly 'oversexed' include reducing the statutory penalty for rape and concurrently the word 'rape' from the criminal code and emphasizing continuities between rape and other acts of violence by substituting 'sexual assaults.' Similarities of cultural perceptions of child molesting and forcible rape are also discussed. Finally, a description of a New Zealand experiment which uses periodic detention is presented to show a direction in which new sanctions may go. Three notes and about 20 references are provided.