Stranger Rape Research Articles

'Are We Sure That He Knew That You Don't Want to Have Sex?': Discursive Constructions of the Suspect in Police Interviews with Rape Complainants.

Recent statistics reveal alarming flaws in the Criminal Justice System's (CJS) handling of rape cases, undermining the pursuit of justice for complainants seeking legal redress. This paper takes a novel approach to explore police rape stereotype use in interviews with rape complainants, utilising critical discourse analysis and conversation analysis and discursive psychology to understand and critique the balance of power within an interview and how this might impact attrition and prosecution decisions. Ten police interviews with rape complainants were analysed with several suspect discursive constructions present throughout, including the interviewer constructing the suspect as misunderstanding, the complainant as miscommunicating non-consent, or agentless and passive talk. A significant and original finding was the way constructions interacted with the spectrum of stranger-to-partner rapes. In stranger rape cases, passive language often obscures the suspect and emphasises the complainant's behaviour. Acquaintance rapes frequently involved misunderstandings centred on visible distress and mixed signals. Partner rapes highlighted issues around consent and coercion, with officers often ignorant of coercive control and domestic abuse. These findings align with Operation Bluestone Soteria (OSB); thus, the recommendations align with those made by OSB's Pillar One.

Wrongful Conviction in Texas: ‘Sex Assaults’, False Guilty Pleas, Stranger Rape with Misidentification, and Drug Offenses

Abstract Citing IP data, Johnson (2021), reported that sexual assault/rape was the most common offense associated with exoneration in the US. Also, stranger rape accounted for 72% of the entire IP database. To further examine the role of sexual assault, the current study examined all exonerations in Texas, the US state with the most sexual assault exonerations. Using NRE data, descriptive analyses, and reclassifying sexual assaults, we find drug offenses are the most common crime type associated with exonerations in Texas but sexual assault/rape accounts for a significant portion of Texas exonerations. Contrary to a common assumption, we also find that exculpatory DNA does not explain the substantial proportion of sexual assaults among exonerations. We also examine the role of stranger rape misidentification, youthful complainant recantations (perjury/false allegations) and false guilty pleas in the NRE Texas database. Finally, we discuss other patterns within the Texas exonerations and policy implications. Keywords: Rape, Exoneration, Misidentification, Pleas

Assessing the Impact of Media on Blaming the Victim of Acquaintance Rape

Along with the direct trauma of their experience, many rape victims also suffer secondary victimization due to the tendency of others to blame victims for their assault, particularly in cases of acquaintance rape. We explored the role of news media coverage in promoting victim blaming tendencies. In Study 1, a content analysis of articles reporting sexual assaults from two newspapers revealed a tendency for media to overreport stranger rapes and underreport acquaintance rapes, perpetuating the stranger rape as “real rape” prototype. More victim blaming language was also used in reports of acquaintance rape than stranger rape. Perceivers responded to these differences; a high victim blaming news article resulted in greater victim blaming compared to an article low in victim blame content (Study 2 and 3), and exposure to a high blaming article produced greater victim blaming in a subsequent unrelated case of rape and increased endorsement of rape myths (Study 3). These findings demonstrate the importance of the media in shaping public perception of rape victims, particularly in cases of acquaintance rape, and suggest that news media, legislators, and other visible communicators can change the culture of victimization through intentional efforts to delegitimize rape stereotypes in their reporting and dialogs.

Post-Procedural Form and Rape Ambiance: Policing Sexual Violence in Mare of Easttown

Mare of Easttown figures a social environment that is both city and family at once, making it impossible to disentangle stranger rape and forms of acquaintance, date, or intimate partner rape—and therefore to locate the “problem” of rape as one of crimes to be solved by the police; or of ordinary heterosexuality, requiring more radical cultural transformation. Completing filming after the summer 2020 resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the wake of the police murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, the role of the police is further compromised in Mare of Easttown. I read the show’s episodic anxieties—its increasingly unrealistic plot developments that push at the borders of each episode in order to keep them open—as managing these ambivalences: between stranger and intimate rape; between “crime” and “the family”; between the public and the private; between trust in law enforcement and critique.

The impact of COVID-19 restrictions on sexual assault in Western Denmark.

This study sets out to investigate whether the 15-month nationwide COVID-19 lockdown in Denmark had an impact on the victim demographics, location of sexual assaults, and relationship between victim and perpetrator in the Western part of Denmark compared to the 15months prior to the lockdown initiatives. This study is a retrospective study including a total of 596 cases. Cases were identified in the database of the Department of Forensic Medicine Aarhus, including cases labeled "rape," "attempted rape," and "later reported." 315 cases were found between March 11th2020 and June 10th2021 (lockdown) and 281 cases were found between December 11th2018 and March 10th2020(pre-lockdown). Fewer victims were in the age group 15-24 during lockdown (58.4%) than pre-lockdown (71.7%). Fewer stranger rapes occurred during lockdown (11%) than pre-lockdown (19.7%). During lockdown, more sexual assault occurred at a private site (80.1%) than pre-lockdown (60%); correspondingly, fewer public sexual assaults occurred during lockdown (10.3%) than pre-lockdown (26%). No statistically significant difference was observed regarding police reporting of the assault or alcohol intake in the victim prior to assault. We found an overall change in demographics regarding sexual assaults during the lockdown period indicating the restrictions during the lockdown could have affected the patterns of sexual assault in Denmark.

Predicting the Criminal Record of Spanish Stranger Rapists from Their Crime Scene Behaviours

ABSTRACT Despite the development of Offending Profiling models for Stranger Rapists in UK contexts, there has been little focus on the extent to which these models cross validate for other countries. Drawing upon offender profiling, cross-cultural and sex offending literature, 233 cases of sexual assault committed by stranger offenders (one offender, one victim) were analyzed to produce a Spanish Stranger Rapist model. Chi-square associations are considered between the characteristics of offenders and their crime scene behaviors. Significant associations were then entered into a binary logistic regression to explore which crime scene behaviors can be used to predict offenders’ prior convictions. The findings suggest a number of differences between UK and Spanish Stranger Rapists. Spanish Police Profilers could develop misleading profiles if reliant on UK-centric models. In the present study, we found that offenders’ diminished volitional and intellectual capacities predicts offenders’ psychiatric history, values stolen predicts offenders’ prior convictions for theft and non-sexual violence, and a surprise approach predicts a serial sexual offender. Further work is needed to confirm the validity and reliability of this Spanish model with a new larger sample of cases and to establish its usefulness for Spanish police investigations. The same methodology could be applied to other crime types, including Spanish homicide and sexual homicide.

Patterns and Predictors of Stranger Rape Locations

This paper examines the spatial, environmental, and temporal patterns of 10,488 stranger rapes committed over a 15-year period in Greater London, UK. We distinguished between two types of stranger rapes according to perpetrator method of approach, i.e. absent/fleeting interaction with victim on approach (S1) or extended interaction with victim on approach (S2). There were a range of locational settings in which perpetrators both encountered their victims and where the offence took place, and these differed by method of approach. The highest number of S1 offences occurred outdoors, with 74% of approaches and 55% of offences located recorded as outside. For S2 rapes, there was more variety in approach locations with only 32% outside. The level of locational correspondence between approach and offence location was 71% for S1 rapes and 28% for S2 rapes. A series of negative binomial regression models identified variables predictive of stranger rape offence location. There were significant associations with transport connections and the night-time economy for both S1 and S2 rapes. Other significant predictors were deprivation score, the percentage of one person properties, and the percentage of private rented properties in a location. The percentage of green space was a significant predictor for S1 rapes only. The current findings challenge the popular narrative that stranger rape occurs in a specific setting (i.e. outside in a secluded location at night) and have implications for place-based crime prevention policy.

"Were you wearing underwear?" Stigma and fears around sexual violence: A narrative of stranger rape and considerations for mental health nurses when working with survivors.

WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE SUBJECT?: Although sexual violence is prevalent, incidents of stranger rape remain statistically uncommon. Societal stigma and myths surrounding sexual violence are widespread. An individual's experience in the immediate aftermath and beyond can be shaped by the perception/s of sexual violence which are held and expressed by those they come into contact with. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS TO EXISTING KNOWLEDGE?: This paper adds to the limited literature base and the population and practical-knowledge gap around a specific form of sexual violence. This paper also demonstrates the need for reflection and discussion in minimizing blame that can unconsciously be shifted onto survivors in the form of myths and stereotypical views of sexual violence. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE?: Perceptions may be held around sexual violence, and by extension about the survivor, which may impede engagement and the building of trust within a therapeutic relationship. Myths that are synonymous with rape and all forms of sexual violence can be held by professionals, and lead to blame, negative judgement and lack of empathy towards survivors. Given the prevalence of sexual violence, this paper is applicable across all health and social care settings, and in particular mental health nursing professionals who may be more likely to meet people who have experienced sexual trauma. ABSTRACT: Introduction This narrative illustrates the lived experience of a specific form of sexual violence (stranger rape) and its resulting implications as experienced by the second author, which is discussed under the following headings: your body as a crime scene, how lived experience compares to the myth of the 'real rape' and the wellbeing and health consequences arising from the experience. [Correction added on 5 September 2022, after first online publication: The preceding paragraph has been corrected in this version.] Aim In their capacity as mental health nurses, the authors invite readers to consider the spoken, or more likely unheard stories of sexual violence, which are unfortunately commonplace among those who access mental health services. Implications for Practice For professionals holding the privileged position of hearing these stories, there is a need to be reflective as to how fear, and personal or professionally held myths and stigmatizing views of sexual violence, and by extension views towards the survivor, are carried into therapeutic spaces, and the implications these can have. Practical suggestions as to how to discuss and manage disclosure of sexual violence in the context of trauma informed care are also provided.

COVID-19 and Gender-Based Violence: Investigating the "Shadow Pandemic" of Sexual Violence During Crisis Lockdown in Nigeria.

The COVID-19 pandemic created a myriad of problems including an increase in the cases of gender-based violence, prompting the United Nations Women to refer to the trend as a "shadow pandemic." In spite of this trend, research exploring the impact of COVID-19 in Africa have given little consideration to issues bordering on gender. To address this, a qualitative study involving 19 women and girls who experienced sexual violence during the lockdown, and 6 officials of women and child protection services as key informants, was conducted. Findings indicated a variety of sexual violence directed toward participants including marital rape, incest, acquaintance rape, date rape, and stranger rape. The conditions of the COVID-19 lockdown not only created opportunities for motivated offenders, but also increased the vulnerabilities of women to sexual victimization. These findings advance the need to acknowledge the increase in sexual violence, reimagine government's policies, create awareness, and recognize women and child support networks as essential services during a lockdown.

Understanding the Geography of Rape through the Integration of Data: Case Study of a Prolific, Mobile Serial Stranger Rapist Identified through Rape Kits.

Environmental criminological research on rape series is an understudied field due largely to deficiencies in official and publicly available data. Additionally, little is known about the spatial patterns of rapists with a large number of stranger rapes. With a unique integration and application of spatial, temporal, behavioral, forensic, investigative, and personal history data, we explore the geography of rape of a prolific, mobile serial stranger rapist identified through initiatives to address thousands of previously untested rape kits in two U.S. urban, neighboring jurisdictions. Rape kit data provide the opportunity for a more complete and comprehensive understanding of stranger rape series by linking crimes that likely never would have been linked if not for the DNA evidence. This study fills a knowledge gap by exploring the spatial offending patterns of extremely prolific serial stranger rapists. Through the lens of routine activities theory, we explore the motivated offender, the lack of capable guardianship (e.g., built environment), and the targeted victims. The findings have important implications for gaining practical and useful insight into rapists’ use of space and behavioral decision-making processes, effective public health interventions and prevention approaches, and urban planning strategies in communities subjected to repeat targeting by violent offenders.

Predicting Serial Stranger Rapists: Developing a Statistical Model From Crime Scene Behaviors.

Stranger rapes are the most difficult cases to solve for the police, especially when a serial rapist is involved. Recent research in offender profiling has focused on generating inferences between crime scene variables and offender characteristics to aid the police investigation. This study aims to develop an empirical model to predict a new case of a serial stranger rapist by analyzing a Spanish sample of 231 one-off and 38 serial sexual offenders. A multivariate logistic regression model that included eight significant crime-related variables was able to predict whether an unknown offender is a one-off or serial rapist based only on the victim's account. The predictive validity of the model was tested using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis and the result of AUC value indicated a medium predictive capacity. The final model correctly classifies nearly 80% of serial stranger rapist cases. The implications of these findings for criminal investigation are discussed.

Predicting rapist type based on crime-scene violence, interpersonal involvement, and criminal sophistication in U.S. stranger rape cases

Stranger rape cases are one of the most difficult sexual assault crimes to solve for law enforcement. This study aimed to compare crime-scene characteristics between serial rapists and single-victim rapists in stranger rape cases and build a predictive model to predict rapist type. An archival database of released sex offenders included 385 who committed stranger rapes. Of those, 244 were single-victim rapists and 141 were serial rapists. The single-victim rapists were significantly more likely to have violently themed crime-scene characteristics than serial rapists, whereas serial rapists were significantly more likely than single-victim rapists to engage in criminally sophisticated behavior and induce participation from their victims. A logistic regression using 10 crime-scene characteristics correctly identified 75.8% of cases as perpetrated by either single-victim or serial rapists. The most significant predictors of rapist type were whether the offender digitally penetrated their victim, whether the offender choked their victim, whether they were at a new/unknown location or whether they threatened their victim. The implications of these results are that they benefit law enforcement in the investigation of stranger rape cases by potentially narrowing down their suspect pool and add to the classification of stranger rapists in offender profiling literature.

Beliefs on Sexual Violence in the Context of System Justification Theory: The Role of Hostile Sexism and Beliefs in Biological Origins of Gender Differences

Estimates suggest that around 20% of women may have experienced rape. Various misconceptions about rape (i.e., rape myths) are closely related to victim blaming. In our studies we tested the link between system justification, beliefs in biological origins of gender differences, ambivalent sexism and beliefs concerning sexual violence. Study 1 was conducted among 433 Polish students. The sequential mediation analysis suggests that system justification predicts the level of rape myth acceptance through beliefs in biological origins of gender differences and then hostile (but not benevolent) sexism. In Study 2, conducted among 197 Polish students, we tested the relationship between beliefs in biological origins of gender differences and beliefs concerning sexual violence using experimental design. Contrary to our expectations, students who read the text about social origins of gender differences perceived the survivor of a hypothetical acquaintance rape as less credible, and proposed a lower sentence for a stranger rape perpetrator, compared to participants who read about biological origins of gender differences. We suspect that this is due to experiencing reactance when confronted with social explanations of gender differences. We discuss implications for research and policy.

Solidarity in Falling Apart

In this essay, I reconceptualize feminized trauma by utilizing a queer crip feminist disability justice framework. This reconceptualizing allows for an intervention in both historical psychoanalytic and contemporary biomedical framings of the experience of gendered and sexual violence, pursuant or sequelic trauma, and associated symptoms. Both historical and contemporary psycho-logics too often imagine gendered and sexual violence as abnormal or exceptional events (e.g., “stranger rape”) which can be treated and cured individually, thus delimiting them within a white, wealthy or middle-class, cis- and hetero-feminine register. As a corrective, within the framework of everyday emergencies, insidious traumas, and cripistemologies of crisis, I position feminine fracturing and falling apart as chronic, and consider abolitionist strategies for survival, care, and solidarity beyond traditional medical frameworks for recovery. This further provides a way to understand dissociation or rather dissociative-adjacent symptomology as real, legitimate, and painful, yet also as sociopolitical products experienced differently across diverse populations—and as mundane, banal, and even expected for some. Here, feminine fracturing is symptom, method, and potential avenue for change or liberation. What does “recovery” look like when feminized trauma is endemic to the point of being so normalized and unexceptional as to be a thoroughly unremarkable part of our everyday cultural backdrop? How is this exacerbated when we examine the experiences of trans women, poor women, and immigrant and BIPOC women and femmes? I posit that there is promise in embracing a fracturing, in falling apart—as antidote to the normative and neoliberal logic of keeping it together.

Stranger rape; distinctions between the typical rape type and other types of rape. A study based on data from Center for Victims of Sexual Assault

ObjectiveThe aim of this descriptive cohort study was to characterize stranger rape compared to other types of rape. Method & MaterialsAll cases of women aged 12 years or older, who contacted a Center for Victims of Sexual Assault in the region of Southern Denmark and underwent a forensic examination in 2018, were collected and analyzed. Descriptive frequencies, Pearson's χ2-test and Fisher's exact-test were performed. ResultsCompared to other types of rape, stranger rape were reported to the police more frequently, earlier and more frequently independently, without contact to family, friends or other authorities. In cases of stranger rape women were exposed to threats and violence more often, and clinical findings were found to coincide with the women's report more frequently. Regarding the offenders' level of planning, it was not possible to find significant differences between stranger rape and other rape types by comparing frequencies of the offenders' use of condoms and weapons and/or other remedies as surrogate markers for degree of planning. ConclusionThere were several significant characteristic differences between stranger rape and other types of rape. Characterizing the ‘archetypical rape’ in opposition to other and more frequent types of rape, may give the public, the police, the courts and aid organizations the background needed to understand the importance of rape typologies when handling cases of sexual assault.

Wrongful Conviction in Sexual Assault: Stranger Rape, Acquaintance Rape, and Intra-Familial Child Sexual Assaults

This article reviews the recently published book by M. B. Johnson— Wrongful conviction in sexual assault: Stranger rape, acquaintance rape, and intra-familial child sexual assaults. The focus of the book is on the unique combination of factors specifically within sexual crime investigation and legislation that lead to the overrepresentation of this type of crimes within wrongful convictions. The book presents a detailed analysis of social context, and historical backdrop specific to wrongful convictions in sexual crimes. It is a highly informative and well-written book.

Is There an "Expert" Stranger Rapist?

The concept of expertise applied to the criminal context assumes that offenders are driven by the abilities to both maximize the payoffs and minimize the risks associated with the crime-commission. This study tested the articulation between these two types of decisions taken by stranger rapists to successfully commit their crime. Specifically, this study aims to identify whether offenders whose modus operandi is indicative of criminal expertise are more likely to use forensic awareness strategies. Multivariate analyses conducted on 1,551 cases showed that stranger rapists who adopted behaviors indicative of expertise were more likely to use forensic awareness strategies to decrease the risk of police detection. Mixed associations were found between the number of forensic awareness strategies and their nature (i.e., protecting identity vs. destroying evidence) and rapists’ expertise, thus leading to a four-type theoretical classification of expertise: novice, bold, opportunistic, and expert stranger rapists. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Case linkage in Australian serial stranger rape

PurposeCase linkage theory and practice have received growing empirical support; however, they have yet to be examined fully within Australia. For sexual assault case linkage to be successful, it is assumed that a serial rapist will behave relatively consistently across offences yet distinctively compared to other offenders. The purpose of this paper is to test the underlying principles of case linkage, behavioural consistency and distinctiveness, as well as distinguishing accuracy.Design/methodology/approachIn total, 250 solved stranger rapes by 171 offenders (46 serial rapists, 125 one-off rapists) were taken from Queensland Police Service (QPS) crime records. All possible crime pairings were created and cross-crime similarity was assessed using Jaccard’s coefficient. Receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis was used to examine the ability to distinguish between linked and unlinked offence pairs.FindingsSerial linked pairs had the highest Jaccard’s coefficient (0.456), followed by non-serial unlinked (0.253) and finally, serial unlinked pairs (0.247). Within the ROC analysis, an area under the curve value was found of 0.913, indicating excellent distinguishing accuracy. Both the underlying principles of behavioural consistency and distinctiveness were supported through theoretical and practical methods. This paper provides the first analysis of serial rape case linkage in Australia, adding validity to this practice.Research limitations/implicationsThe authors wish to acknowledge the support and assistance from the QPS in undertaking this research. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the QPS and any errors of omission or commission are the responsibility of the authors.Practical implicationsThis paper provides validity to the practice of case linkage using a database within Australia. The results of this paper can be used to inform investigators of serial offender behaviours. The theories of offender consistency and distinctiveness are supported, highlighting the importance of behavioural evidence for practitioners. This paper provided a practical increase of the quantity and quality of offences uploaded on the Australian violent and sexual crimes database, which will assist further linkage efforts.Originality/valueThis paper is the first in Australia to examine consistency, distinctiveness and case linkage of serial stranger rape. Thus is contributes significantly not only to an increased understanding of serial rape and case linkage in Australia but also brings Australia closer to modern research practices in this field.

Offender and victim ‘journey-to-crime’: Motivational differences among stranger rapists

PurposeTo examine the variability in the ‘journey-to-crime’ and ‘journey-to-victimization’ in stranger rapes when disaggregated by offender motive. Using crime pattern theory as the theoretical framework, a series of pre-offense factors are used to explain these differences. MethodsTwo-step cluster analysis is first used to identify motive subtypes in 1009 stranger female rapes from a French police database. Kruskal-Wallis analyses then test for significant differences in distances traveled between the motivational groups. Finally, a series of negative binomial regressions are conducted to predict three distance measures: offender's residence to crime scene, victim's residence to crime scene, and victim's residence to offender's residence. ResultsThe average distances traveled for both offenders and victims to the crime scene, and between their residences, varied by motive. Findings from the regression models indicated that while offender motive is important, environmental characteristics and victim activity at the time of the assault also predict the distances traveled for both individuals. ConclusionsDetermining the most likely motive of the offender, in conjunction with other offense characteristics that would be known at the time of investigation, has the potential to provide law enforcement officials with an indication of the unknown offender's geographic behavior in active rape cases.

Offender and victim 'journey-to-crime': Motivational differences among stranger rapists

Offender and victim 'journey-to-crime': Motivational differences among stranger rapists