Police officers' definitions of rape: A prototype study

Abstract

The study investigates police officers' definitions of different rape situations. On the basis of the concept of ‘cognitive prototypes’ a methodology is developed which elicits consensual feature lists describing six rape situations: the typical, i.e. most common rape, the credible, dubious, and false rape complaints as well as the rape experiences that are particularly hard vs. relatively easy for the victim to cope with. Qualitative analysis of the data allows the identification of the characteristic features defining the prototype of each rape situation, as well as comparisons between the situations in terms of their common and distinctive features. It is shown that police officers, while sharing some of the widely held stereotypes about rape, generally perceive rape as a serious crime with long‐term negative consequences for the victim. The quantitative analysis of prototype similarity between the six situations corroborates this conclusion by demonstrating a high similarity between the prototypes of the typical and the credible rape situation. In addition, subjects' general attitude towards rape victims is measured to compare the prototypes provided by respondents holding a positive vs. negative attitude towards rape victims. Findings for the two groups, however, reveal more similarities than differences in their descriptions of rape prototypes. The paper concludes with a discussion of the feasibility of the prototype approach presented in this study as a strategy for investigating implicit or common‐sense theories of rape.

Men’s Acquaintance Rape Scripts: A Comparison Between a Regional University and a Military Academy

“…The perpetrator is described as using physical aggression, is mentally or socially unfit, and is totally responsible for the incident. This finding was replicated by Krahé (1991), who found that police officers also described a typical rape as involving a stranger who attacks outdoors with a moderate degree of physical force.…”

Psychological mechanisms underlying support for juvenile sex offender registry laws: prototypes, moral outrage, and perceived threat

“…Laypersons and prosecutors might be more likely to envision severe sex offender stereotypes. In fact, research suggests that people often have a violent prototype of sex offenders (Finkel & Groscup, 1997;Krahé, 1991), envisioning an offender who forces unwilling individuals to engage in sexual acts (Quinn, Forsyth, & Mullen-Quinn, 2004). Prototypes and stereotypes have been shown to influence legal decision-making in other types of case involving juvenile offenders.…”

Rape Myths and Beyond: A Commentary on Edwards and Colleagues (2011)

“…Finally, the high degree of mismatch between individuals' rape scripts and most marital rapes helps explain why individuals may believe that husbands cannot rape their wives. Supporting the role of rape scripts in understanding these rape myths, Krahé (1991) evaluated German police officers' scripts for different types of rape and found that officers described the typical rape as a moderately violent stranger assault. In contrast, rapes that deviated from this script, such as those that occurred in the context of consensual activity, involved an assailant or victim who were acquainted, or that involved heavy alcohol use, were regarded as dubious or false.…”