‘Walking on egg shells’

Abstract

The aim of this present work is to explore police officers’ experiences and views in respect of male rape. I critically examine the role of the police, and their experiences and perceptions of handling male rape cases. This study presents detailed, in-depth, and rich data from the police in England. The findings are generated from the police, male rape counsellors, male rape therapists and voluntary agency workers. The participants were interviewed and filled out qualitative questionnaires, which were kept anonymous. I ensured that those who were interviewed did not also fill out a questionnaire, as each method addresses issues in a different form. To inform the development of the semi-structured interview schedule and the qualitative questionnaires, I drew on Abdullah-Khan (2008) in order to shape the types of questions that I asked. Overall, this study gained a sample size of 70 participants. In this paper, I solely focus on state agencies’ responses and attitudes toward male rape. From the findings, five distinct themes emerged: (1) level of communications between officers and victims; (2) perpetuation of male rape myths and stereotypes by judges and juries; (3) lack of evidence in male rape cases; (4) attrition in male rape cases; and (5) issues of consent in male rape cases. There are serious concerns in terms of how the criminal justice system deals with male rape victims, resulting not only in poor treatment of the victims, but also increasing the attrition rate and decreasing the conviction rate in male rape cases. I attempt to tackle poor police practice herein.