Causal and Moral Responsibility of Victims of Rape and Robbery

Abstract

Four experimental studies of attribution in a criminal situation used a 24 ANOVA design with three common independent variables, namely, type of crime, time of crime, and victim's prior experience of crime, all three manipulated through a passage describing an incident of crime involving a male criminal and a female victim, and one common dependent measure which was length of imprisonment recommended for the criminal. The fourth independent variable was subject's sex in the first two experiments and instructionally manipulated female subject's involvement (objective or identifying female subject) in the last two experiments. The second dependent measure was fault attributed to the victim in the first and third experiments and perceived likelihood of crime in the second and fourth experiments. The subjects were undergraduate students of the University of Bombay, 15 per cell in each experiment. Female subjects were more punitive toward the criminal than male subjects, especially in the case of rape, and the rapist received a longer sentence than the robber, especially from female subjects. Identifying female subjects tended to recommend a longer sentence than objective female subjects. Female subjects attributed less fault to the victim and perceived greater likelihood of crime than male subjects and identifying female subjects attributed somewhat less fault to the victim than did objective female subjects. The robbery victim was attributed more fault than the rape victim. Whereas previous experience of similar victimization increased attributed victim's fault, a late hour enhanced both attributed victim's fault and perceived likelihood of crime. These findings are discussed with respect to a theoretical distinction between causal and moral responsibility as represented by the likellhood and fault measures, respectively.