The Victims of Rape
Rape is a crime that not only takes hurts someone for the moment, but it shatters their entire life. Most women never fully recover from being a victim of rape. There are all different types of women who are raped each day, yet there tends to be a specific profile for the most frequent rape victims. There are many factors that come into play when dealing with rape, such as: the victim-offender relationship, alcohol consumption, and a prior record. Also there are many myths about the rape victim. Rape is an extremely sensitive issue for women, victims and non-victims alike. The Uniform Crime Reports and the National Crime Victimization Survey indicate that Black and Hispanic women are at a higher risk for being a victim of rape than White women. Women from ages 20-24 are the most likely to experience rape crime. Women with less education and lower income are also at a higher risk of becoming a victim of rape. Those women that are in the lowest family income category experience the highest rate of rape. Also the women who reside in the city are twice vulnerable to rapes than that of women who live in suburban or rural areas. Finally, unmarried women tend to be victimized more than married women.
MacDonald, J.M. Rape: Offenders and Their Victims. Springfield: Charles C. Thomas, 1971. Amir, M. Patterns of Forcible Rape. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1971. Larsen and Long state that the perception of victim responsibility is a rape myth, which is may be linked to the toleration or acceptance of rape. In support of their claim, Larsen and Long quote Malamuth and Check's study in which it was concluded that, "...general acceptance of rape myths may facilitate and perpetuate rape behavior." Hursch, C.J. The Trouble With Rape. Chicago: Nelson - Hall, 1977. Amir's study of forcible rapes concluded that the presence of alcohol in the victim only occurred in ten percent of the victimizations. Richardson and Campbell found that the victim was considered to be more responsible for the rape when she was drunk. The victim was liked less and perceived to be more immoral and aggressive when she was under the influence of alcohol. However, Norris and Cubbins suggested that the man was attributed a higher degree of responsibility than the women, when both had consumed alcohol. There are many different myths about rapes, yet they all lead to the point where it is the woman's own fault, for some reason or another. A woman under no circumstance should be held against her will and forced into an act in which she wished not to partake in. Rape is a serious crime that should not be taken lightly. Even though a woman is not killed during rape her life is still stripped from her, never to be the same again. Bachman, Ronet. "Predicting the Reporting of Rape Victimizations. Have Rape Forms Made a Difference?" Criminal Justice and Behavior. 1993: 254 - 270. U.S. Conference of Mayors. Rape. Washington D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1974. Fifty-five percent of women are victimized by someone whom they know; the remaining are raped by a stranger according to The National Crime Victimization Survey Report. A stranger injures sixty percent of women in some way during a rape.
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Approximate Word count = 1420
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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