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The Journal of Social Psychology Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vsoc20

An Analysis of Rape Patterns in White and Black Rapists a

Alfred B. Heilbrun Jr. & John M. Cross

a

a

Emory University , USA Published online: 30 Jun 2010.

To cite this article: Alfred B. Heilbrun Jr. & John M. Cross (1979) An Analysis of Rape Patterns in White and Black Rapists, The Journal of Social Psychology, 108:1, 83-87, DOI: 10.1080/00224545.1979.9711964 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00224545.1979.9711964

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The Journal of Social Psychology, 1979. 108. 83-87.

AN ANALYSIS OF RAPE PATTERNS IN WHITE AND BLACK RAPISTS* Emory University

ALFRED

B.

HEILBRUN, JR.,I AND JOHN

M.

CROSS

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SUMMARY

A number of characteristics of rapists in the state of Georgia, their victims, and the acts of rape themselves were correlated and submitted to independent factor analyses for black and white rapists. The factor structures for the two races were similar in some ways but distinct in others. Factor 1 for black rapists loaded positively with age, negatively with education, and negatively with the use of psychological threat. Factor 1 for white rapists included a plus loading for age and a minus loading for education, the same as for the black rapists. However, positive loadings on closeness of relationship to the victim and premeditation also were found for whites on this factor. A second factor for black rapists included a positive loading on two items: closeness of association with the victim and premeditation. Post hoc analysis revealed that white rapists were more likely to use physical force with victims to whom they were more closely related, whereas black rapists showed an increased likelihood of physical force with victims who were less familiar.

A.

INTRODUCTION

Attempts by researchers to understand the social dynamics of rape have ranged from the search for unitary differences between rapists and some reference group to more elaborate typologies that seek to explain the variability between acts of rape. Among the unitary variables that have been identified as characteristic of the rapist are assertiveness (5), sexual conflict (12, 15), alcoholism (14), and lower socioeconomic status (13). Efforts to identify types of rape have produced widely variant results. Gebhard, Gagnon, Pomeroy, and Christenson (3) considered rapists as part

* Received in the Editorial Office, Provincetown, Massachusetts, on January 19, 1978 Copyright, 1979, by The Journal Press. I Requests for reprints should be sent to the first author at the address shown at the end of this article. 83

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of a more general category of sex offenders, concentrating their attention upon three independent aspects of the rape-heterosexual or homosexual nature of the act, consent versus force, and age of the victim. No clear typology relevant only to rapists emerged. Two types of rapists were reported by Gibbons (4). The aggressive rapist was viewed as a product of the lower-class tendency to employ force in interpersonal relations; otherwise this type of rapist was thought to be unremarkable. The violent rapist was not a social class product but differed primarily in terms of family sex experiences such as repressive sexual attitudes or seductive mother-son interactions. Amir (1) proposed three types of rapists. The idiosyncratic rapist commits the act either because of underlying psychopathology or because of unusual circumstances; social roles are of no significance. The rolesupportive rapist usually emerges from the youth culture, and the act is performed to maintain group membership or for sheer sexual gratification. No psychopathology is assumed. The third type, the role-expressive rapist, engages in the act less for sexual satisfaction than for other social context reasons such as participation in group rape. An earlier typology (2), based upon the motivation instigating the rape, also included three types of rapists. Sadists were driven by the need to inflict pain upon the victim, satyriasists by insatiable sexual desires, and libertines by the need to assert superiority and virility. The present study represented a further attempt to identify different patterns of rape. It diverged somewhat from its predecessors by greater utilization of statistical techniques to guide its conclusions. The data from which patterns of rape were sought included characteristics of (a) the rapist (age, education, race), (b) the victim (relationship to rapist), and (c) the act (use of physical force, use of psychological threat, impulsiveness). B.

METHOD

1.

Subjects

Data from the records of 94 males convicted of rape or attempted rape were analyzed. Fifty-four (57%) were blacks and 40 (43%) were whites. The proportion of black rapists was somewhat higher than the United States national average of 46% reported by Gibbons (4). Average ages at time of offense for the black and white rapists were a similar 28.22 (range = 15-63) years and 29.38 (range = 17-60) years, respectively. Mean educationallevels also were similar for the black (7.65 years, range = 0-13 years)

ALFRED B. HEILBRUN, JR. AND JOHN M. CROSS

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and the white (8.23 years, range = 0-14 years) rapists. Most of the rapists came from lower-class backgrounds.

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2.

Measures

All information regarding the rapist, the nature of the act, and the female victim was obtained from the criminal's file maintained in the office of the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles. 2 Three variables relating to the nature of the act required judgments based upon the description of the crime. Use of physical force during the rape, use of psychological threat, and impulsivity-premeditation of the act were rated by the second investigator, a senior at Emory College, on four-point probability scales. For the first two variables, these scales ranged from clearly not involved (score = 1) to clearly involved (score = 4). For the third variable, the ratings were made from clearly an impulsive act (score = 1) to clearly a planned act (score = 4). Twenty of the cases were rated independently by a second rater, also a senior at Emory College. The three coefficients of interjudge agreement were reasonably high, suggesting an acceptable reliability for these ratings. They were physical force, r = .78; psychological threat, r = .81; impulsivity, r = .79. Despite the satisfactory interjudge agreement on the three variables requiring judgment, the question remains whether the information upon which these judgments were based can be considered reasonably accurate (e.g., free of systematic stereotype, free from assumption and conjecture). Two things suggest an affirmative response. First, since the major source of information for the description of the crime is the arresting officer (s), possible stereotypes based upon race of the officer or the criminal could influence perceptions of the circumstances. However, the black/white racial pattern of arresting officer and criminal tends to be unsystematic, especially in Atlanta which is the major crime area in the state. Accordingly, it is exceedingly unlikely that if racial stereotypes do exert influence on perceptions, they could contribute systematically to the present results. The second basis for assuming a reasonable degree of accuracy for the description of criminal circumstances resides in the clear directive issued by the Board of Pardons and Paroles that when information is abstracted for its files from prior police records, fact and not conjecture be selected. 2 The investigators would like to express their appreciation to Mrs. Mamie Reese, Chairman, Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, and to the Board staff for their generous cooperation in this study.

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3.

Procedure

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The sample of 94 rapists represented all cases who had received parole within three years of data collection and whose folders contained the information necessary for purposes of this investigation. Pearson productmoment correlations among the rape variables were determined separately by race? and submitted to independent image factor analyses (10). The varimax (11) criterion was used to achieve orthogonal simple structure. Factor loadings of at least .30 were required for inclusion of a component.

C.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Factor structures for the two races were similar but not the same. An age-education factor was found for both white and black rapists; loadings are indicated below in parentheses. However, the pattern suggested by factor 1 for the white rapist [age (.91), education (-.54), relationship (.46), premeditation (.33)] was the more complex. The factor loadings describe an older, less educated man who plans and executes the rape of someone he knows or even a family member. Alternatively, this pattern would describe a younger, better-educated white man who impulsively rapes a stranger. Factor 1 for the black rapist include age (.88), education (-.57), and psychological threat (- .30). Their loadings associated the older, less educated rapist with less intimidation of his victim; the younger, more educated black rapist, alternatively, was more likely to use threat in the act of rape. The tendency to act impulsively with strangers but to preconceive the rape of more familiar victims also emerged for the black rapist. However, this relation emerged as a second factor, independent of age and education, for the black rapist [relationship (.54) and premeditation (.45)]. It seems clear that the correlational analysis of rape characteristics did not produce highly articulated patterns of rape. With the limited number of variables considered in the factor analysis, perhaps no more could be expected. Yet some of the things that were not found are of interest. For example, the use of physical force did not relate meaningfully to the remaining variables. This might suggest that its occurrence in rape is not a predictable event. Another point-of-view would be that physical force has a more complex relation with other aspects of rape which did not surface due to the correlational mode of analysis used in this study. Supporting this view is the fact that a post hoc analysis did suggest an interaction between J Prior investigations (6. 7. 8. 9) have suggested the utility of considering the dynamics and implications of violent crimes separately by race.

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race, familiarity of the victim, and the probability of physical force during a rape. White rapists were increasingly likely to have used force with greater familiarity of the victim (stranger = 2.33, friend = 2.44, family = 2.86). Black rapists demonstrated the opposite pattern; the probability of force increased with decreasing familiarity of the victim (stranger = 2.93, friend, 2.55, family = 1.80). These mean figures, analyzed by a 2 x 3 factorial analysis of variance for unequal cell N s (16), revealed a significant interaction effect [F(2, 67) = 3.67; P < .05]. What is not clear from these data is whether the use of force is more critically linked to the aggressiveness of the rapist or to the resistance of the victim.

REFERENCES

1. 2. 3 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. II. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

AMIR, N. Patterns in Forcible Rape. Chicago, Ill.: Univ. Chicago Press, 1971. DERIVER, D. The Sexual Criminal. Springfield. Ill.: Thomas, 1956. GEBHARD, P, GAGNON, J., POMEROY, W., & CHRISTENSON, C. Sex Offenses: An Analysis of Types. New York: Harper & Row, 1965. GIBBONS, D. C. Society, Crime, and Criminal Careers. Englewood Cliffs, N.].: Prentice-Hall, 1973. HAMMER, E., & JACKS, 1. A study of Rorschach flexor and extensor human movement responses. J. cu« Psychol., 1955, II, 63-67. HEILBRUN, A. B. Race, criminal violence, and length of parole: A new look at parole outcome. Brit. 1. Crimi1IOI., 1978, 18. 53-61. HEILBRl'N, A. B., & HEILBRUN. K. S. The black minority criminal and violent crime: The role of self-control. Brit. 1. Criminal.. 1977, 17,370-377. HEILBRUN, A. B., HEILBRUN, L. C., & HEILBRI'N, K. L. Impulsive and premeditated homicide: An analysis of subsequent parole risk of the murderer. J. Crim. Law & Criminal .. 1978,69, 108-114. HEILBRUN, A. B., KNOPF, 1. J.. & BRUNER, P. Criminal impulsivity and violence and subsequent parole outcome. Brit. 1. Criminal., 1976. 16, 367-377. ]ORESKOG, K. G. Efficiency estimates in image factor analysis. Psychometrika, 1969,34, 51-75. KAISER, H. F. The varimax criterion for analytic rotation in factor analysis. Psychometrika, 1958, 13, 187-200. KERCHER, G. A., & WALKER, C. E. Reactions of convicted rapists to sexually explicit stimuli. J. Abn. Psychol., 1973, 81, 46-50. KiRK, S. A. The sex offenses of blacks and whites. Arch. Sexual Behau., 1975, 4, 295-302. RADA, R. T. Alcoholism and forcible rape. Amer. J. Psyrhiat., 1975, 132, 444-446. THORNE, F. C .• & HAUPT, T. D. Objective measurement of sex attitudes and behavior in adult males. 1. Clin. Psych ol., 1966, 22, 395-403. WINER, B. ]. Statistical Principles in Experimental Design. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1962.

Department of Psychology Emory University Atlanta, Georgia 30322

An analysis of rape patterns in white and black rapists.

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