Nikki Godden is a lecturer in law at Newcastle Law School.
(Picture card ‘this is not an invitation to rape me’ from Rape Crisis Scotland.)
The low conviction rate for rape – approximately 6 per cent where convictions are measured out of the number of reported cases – and the high rate at which rape cases filter out of the criminal justice system before trial is well known. One common explanation for these statistics is that rape complainants and cases are judged by reference to rape myths, which are false assumptions as to what constitutes rape, and when, where and between whom sex is typically non-consensual. Examples of rape myths are propositions such as: a woman wearing a short skirt is more likely to have consented to sex than a woman wearing less revealing clothing; rape victim-survivors report the incident immediately to the police; rape victim-survivors typically physically resist the perpetrator; subsequent sexual engagements between two people are more likely to be consensual than the first time they had sex. Failing to reflect women’s lived experiences of sexual violations, it is often said that reference to these myths result in complainants being treated with suspicion, cases not being adequately investigated or prosecuted, and defendants being acquitted relatively frequently. However, in an article in the Oxford Journal of Legal Studies which was summarised in the media (see here for example), Helen Reece argues that ‘rape myths’ are not as widespread as is commonly claimed, and do not hinder the investigation and prosecution of rape cases to the extent that is argued by many researchers, feminist activists and policy-makers. (more…)
Inherently Human 