The Rationality of Sexual Offending: Testing a Deterrence/Rational Choice Conception of Sexual Assault

Abstract

Using a combination of hypothetical scenarios and survey-type questions, this study investigates the effect of the context of the offense, formal sanctions, informal sanctions, and moral beliefs on self-reported projections to commit sexual assault. Male college students read and responded to five scenarios each describing a hypothetical sexual assault by a male. Respondents were asked to estimate the certainty of formal and informal punishment for the scenario male, the extent to which they believed the male's actions were morally wrong, and the likelihood that they would do what the male did under the same circumstances. We found that projections to commit sexual assault were affected by two circumstances of the incident, the likelihood that the male would be formally sanctioned (dismissed from the university or arrested) and the respondent's moral beliefs. The significant deterrent effect observed for formal sanction threats was not invariant, however. The fear of formal sanctions had no effect when respondents were inhibited by their moral evaluation of the incident. The deterrent effect of formal sanction threats did not vary by the level of social censure for the scenario male's actions. The implications of these finding for previous and subsequent deterrence research are discussed.