A Brief Report on Rape Myth Acceptance: Differences Between Police Officers, Law Students, and Psychology Students in the United Kingdom

Abstract

A common perception is that police officers hold very negative attitudes about rape victims. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to establish whether police officers do accept stereotypical rape myths at a higher level compared to members of other populations. There were 3 comparison samples, composed of police officers, law students, and psychology students, that completed the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance scale. Male and female police officers accepted "she lied" myths at a higher level than the student samples. Student samples were found to accept 2 types of rape myths ("she asked for it" and "he didn't meant to") at a higher level compared to police officers. No significant differences were found in the other 4 subfactors. Therefore, the pattern of results suggests that police officers do not adhere to stereotypical myths about rape victims more than do other populations.

From “real rape” to real justice: A systematic review of police officers' rape myth beliefs

“… Female officers blamed the female victim more when there were low rape myths in the scenario than male police officers. Sleath and Bull (2015)  Gender  Significant effect found between males accepting more rape myths than female police officers. On particular subscales ("she lied"), male officers and male students accepted more rape myths than male psychology students.…”

“…The goal of this review is to describe the literature that investigates rape myths within the police service, including negative cognitions/schemas of victims/perpetrators which may influence decision making in sexual assault cases. Over the past three decades (Page, 2008a) there has been limited research into police officers' rape myths (Sleath & Bull, 2015). With attrition rates being greatest at the investigative stage of a sexual assault case (Brown, Hamilton, & O'Neill, 2007), it needs to be recognized that police officers are actively involved in the legal decision-making process and ultimately, officers' identity, social position, and past experiences may be influential in the decisions made in processing a rape case (Alderden & Ullman, 2012).…”

“…A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF POLICE OFFICERS' RAPE MYTH BELIEFS 24 assigned a quality-score of 0 for their reliability and validity of measures used, as they failed to provide information on reliability/validity. Lastly, 12 documents (66.67%; Baldry, 1996;Campbell 1995;Lee et al, 2012;Lonsway, 1996;Lonsway et al, 2001;Page, 2008aPage, , 2008bPage, , 2010Sleath, 2011;Sleath & Bull, 2012;Sleath & Bull, 2015;Venema, 2013), received a score of 3 on the quality of their study for reliability and validity due to providing a citation of the original study for the established scale/measure and the validity and reliability of the measure(s) for their current study (see Table 7).…”

The Impact of Gendered Stereotypes on Perceptions of Violence: A Commentary

“…As indicated by the experiences of Dr. Blasey Ford, women can be criticized for not reporting their assaults earlier as well as falsely reporting an assault to get revenge on their accused perpetrator. Despite much research showing that the rate of false rape reports are in line with other false violent crime reports (i.e., between 2-10%; Lisak, Gardinier, Nicksa, & Cote, 2010), women are often disbelieved by friends and family (Deming, Covan, Swan, & Billings, 2013;Harned, 2005), law enforcement (Ask, 2010;McMillan, 2018;Sleath & Bull, 2015), and other individuals in authority (e.g., clergy, Sheldon & Parent, 2002;lawyers, Krahé, Temkin, Bieneck, & Berger, 2008).…”

A meta-analysis of the emotional victim effect for female adult rape complainants: Does complainant distress influence credibility?

“…Advanced law students and probationary lawyers evaluate rape complainants who do not match the rape victim stereotype more negatively (e.g., Krahé, Temkin, Bieneck & Berger, 2008;. Barristers and judges are influenced by the rape victim stereotype and rape myths in their court practice (e.g., Feldman-Summers & Palmer, 1980;Gray & Horvath, 2018;Sleath & Bull, 2015;Temkin, 2000;Temkin, Gray & Barrett, 2018). Time spent as a police officer, or investigating sexual assault, does not consistently improve judgments of rape complainants including credibility (Goodman-Delahunty & Graham, 2011;Sleath & Bull, 2012;Wentz & Archbold, 2012cf.…”