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Citation: Hohl, K. & Stanko, E. (2015). Complaints of rape and the criminal justice system: Fresh evidence on the attrition problem in England and Wales. European Journal of Criminology, 12(3), pp. 324-341. doi: 10.1177/1477370815571949 This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Permanent AbstractThe UK has one of the lowest conviction rates for rape in Europe. This article presents unique evidence on the factors that influence the attrition of rape allegations in the English criminal justice system. The study is based on a large, representative sample of rape allegations reported to the London Metropolitan Police, the UK's biggest police force. The dataset contains unprecedented detail on the incident, victim, suspect and police investigation. The results lend support to the influence of some rape myths and stereotypes on attrition. These findings suggest that further central factors include the ethnicity of the suspect as well as what police officers and prosecutors perceive as evidence against the truthfulness of the allegation: the police record noting a previous false allegation by the victim, inconsistencies in the victim's account of the alleged rape, and evidence or police opinion casting doubt on the allegation.

This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. Jonathan Jackson is a professor of research methodology at the London School of Economics and a member of the LSE's Mannheim Centre for Criminology. Permanent repository link Sarah MacQueen is a Research Fellow with the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research based at the University of Edinburgh Law School Word count (including abstract, footnotes, references, tables): 8,981Abstract Why do people comply with traffic laws and regulations? Road traffic policing tends to be premised on the idea that people comply when they are presented with a credible risk of sanction in the event of non-compliance. Such an instrumental model of compliance contrasts with the normative account offered by procedural justice theory, in which compliance is encouraged by legitimate legal authorities. Comparing these two accounts, we find evidence that both instrumental and normative factors explain variance in motorists' self-reported propensity to offend. Extending the standard procedural justice account, we also find that it is social identitynot legitimacy -that forms the 'bridge' linking procedural fairness and compliance, at least according to a definition of legitimacy that combines felt obligation and moral endorsement. Fair treatment at the hands of police officers seems to enhance identification with the social group the police represent, and in turn, identification seems to motivate adherence to rules (laws) governing social behavior. These findings have implications not only for understandings of legal compliance, but also our understanding of why procedural justice motivates compliance, and the role of procedural justice in promoting social cohesion.