Just finished Nelson DeMille’s pretty good military-crime thriller The General’s Daughter (Warner Books 1992). Haven’t seen the Travolta movie, which I’ve heard sucks.
Chapter 31 includes this passage, in which an Army criminal investigator tells her partner:
*"…Did you know that a rape victim is statistically more likely to get raped again than a female who has never been raped?.. But no one seems to know why. There’s no common denominator like job, age, neighborhood, or anything like that. It’s just that if it happened once, it’s more likely to happen again…"
*
News to me. True, or B.S.?
I spent some time volunteering to be on call for rape survivors in the ER of a large city hospital. This is only anecdotal but every time I was called, the victim had alcohol on her breath and a few had been raped more than once. This leads me to believe that women who drink a lot and hang out in bars with drunk men are more likely to be raped. It shouldn’t be true but I think it is. I also had two cases of mentally retarded women who were victimized repeatedly. I suspect it is factors like these that would explain the “statistics”. I doubt that a random victim of a home invasion rape is more likely to be raped again.
Not all rapes are reported. For various reasons some victims never tell what happened to them. People throw out figures like 80%-90% go unreported (dubious - how would they know?)
A victim who reports a rape is thus more likely to have previously reported a rape. Not because she is more prone to being raped, but because she is less likely to keep silent about it.
76% of rapes are committed by non-strangers; the likelihood that a rape victim will still have a connection to the rapist, or like-minded acquaintances, seems predictive. Factors like some victims’ high-risk behavior can only add to that probability.
I agree with the above posts. I also believe that the social and cultural conditioning of many females has a part in it-- akin to the concept of a “born victim”, some people are submissive and less likely to fight back against unfair treatment. To put it cynically, some predators can “smell” it on a woman if she is likely to make a compliant victim.
The rate of unreported rape incidents is the product of comparing events reported to police (indicated in the UCR) and the events reported by victims to those who conduct anonymous surveys (NCVS, for example). The difference is discussed as the “dark figure” and that is then adjusted and extrapolated to produce as educated guess as to the actual rate. No one asked, but among the many problems with both modes of data collection, is that rape is tallied per 100,000 citizens. One could argue that the rate should be figured against 100,000 females, as the victims are almost always girls and women.
In response to the OP, if one ascribes to the Lifestyle or Routine Activities notion of victimization, one would be likely to suggest that a victim is likely to be victimized again if the life style activities that contributed to the first attack are not changed. While there is sometimes some validity to the position, it is more frequently used as a convenient basis from which the victim is blamed for her own victimization, a very useful perspective in the “boys will be boys” approach.
I think what Juliette was trying to say is there is almost an “aura” of victimhood. It’s similar to the kid who gets bullied at school. Such a kid will often carry himself or herself in such a way, probably without even realizing it, that practically screams “easy target”. This makes him a mark for other bullies, even if he moves to a new school where his new classmates are unaware that he was bullied at his previous school. I can see a rape victim having the same aura.
For reference, in the BBC link given, the British Crime Survey is the parallel to the NCVS as one of the major source of information on unreported crimes. And it’s acknowledged by all major political parties as the most reliable source of crime statistics we have available to us.
Do females living in abusive situations – like a girl being raped by a family member – count? If that kind of thing occurs often enough it could really skew the statistics.
I used to listen to a lot of loveline with Dr Drew, his opinion was in many cases when a woman was sexually abused as a child she would be likely to -
[ul]
[li]Put herself in dangerous situations.[/li][li]‘Freeze up’ when a man make an unwanted sexual advance. (Man thinks - ‘she was a lousy lay’, Woman thinks - ‘I was raped’)[/li][li]Think she was raped or taken advantage of when she wasn’t. (There was one caller who insisted her gynecologist behaved improperly even after Dr. Drew explained several times what he did was a normal exam)[/li][/ul]
If Dr. Drew is correct it would help explain why a rape victim is more likely to be raped again. Dr. Drew also believed some people ‘smelled’ like victims and attracted victimizers. I think when most people say ‘smell’ they mean body language and other subtle signals that we don’t consciously notice.
I think Harriet the Spry meant that all victims of a particular crime are probably more likely than the general population to be a victim of the same crime again.
Take robbery or mugging. There are certain behaviors, e.g. not locking your doors and windows, walking alone at night in shady parts of town, etc. that make one more likely to be robbed. After a person is robbed, no doubt some will change those behaviors. But a few, perhaps many, will think, “What are the odds of that happening again?” and change nothing. Others might be more vigilant for a while, but lapse into bad habits again.
Plus you have to consider geography. Those who live in a high-crime neighborhood are likely to be victimized multiple times. Young women who live on or near college campuses are probably at higher risk for rape when you consider things like date rape.
Obviously, a victim of homicide isn’t likely to be a victim of homicide again.