The Impacts of International Rape Laws Upon Official Rape Rates

• Author: Don Soo Chon,Janice E. Clifford
• DOI: 10.1177/0306624X20952399
• Date: 01 February 2021
• Published date: 01 February 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0306624X20952399

International Journal of

Offender Therapy and

Comparative Criminology

2021, Vol. 65(2-3) 244 –261

© The Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/0306624X20952399

journals.sagepub.com/home/ijo

Article

The Impacts of International

Rape Laws Upon Official

Rape Rates

Don Soo Chon1 and Janice E. Clifford2

Abstract

Relying on the official rape rates, previous cross-national researchers found a significant

and positive relationship between gender equality and the rates of reported rapes,

and they used such findings as supporting evidence of the backlash hypothesis that

increased gender equality leads to augmented violence against females. However,

such a conclusion may be faulty because of the contested validity and reliability of

the official rape rate. This study examined how the variation in a comprehensive legal

definition of rape is associated with the rates of reported rapes across 74 countries

by using the rates of reported rapes from the United Nations Office of Drugs and

Crime. The regression analysis suggests that the comprehensive legal definition of

rape, more than a country’s gender equality and developmental level, is related to

the official rape rate. A country records a high official rape rate when the country

includes a broad range of sexual assaults in the category of rape crime, suggesting a

reevaluation of the existing studies on this topic.

Keywords

rape law reform, legal definition of rape, validity and reliability of official rape rate,

cross-national study, feminist theories of victimization

Cross-national studies by Austin and Kim (2000) and Chon (2013) using police rape

rates from the Interpol (1995) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

(UNODC, 2012), respectively, found a significant and positive relationship between

gender equality and cross-national rates of reported rapes. These researchers used such

1Auburn University, Montgomery, AL, USA

2Auburn University, Auburn, AL, USA

Corresponding Author:

Don Soo Chon, Department of Criminal Justice, Auburn University at Montgomery, 7071 Senator Dr.,

Montgomery, AL 36124-4023, USA.

Email: dchon@aum.edu

952399IJOXXX10.1177/0306624X20952399International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative CriminologyChon and Cliord

research-article2020

Chon and Clifford 245

findings as supporting evidence for the backlash hypothesis (Brownmiller, 1975;

Russell, 1975), whereby males use sexual assault as a tool to keep females in their infe-

rior positions when females achieve enhanced socio-economic status with improved

gender equality in a country. However, their conclusion may be faulty because the

validity and reliability of official rape statistics are questionable. Even in a highly

developed country, the rates of reported rapes based on police records are not accurate,

as up to 84% of rape incidents are not likely to be reported to the police (Yung, 2014).

Further, official rape rates for some countries (mostly developing countries) are more

likely than in others (mainly developed countries) to be underestimated.

Several factors, other than actual rape incidents, may contribute to the variation of

official rape rates among countries globally. Rape law reforms have occurred in

Western countries, such as the United States, Sweden, and Australia, resulting in sig-

nificant changes to the context of rape. First, the broadening of the legal definition of

rape led to the inclusion of an array of sexual assaults, such as marital rape and forced

oral and anal sex, as well as traditional penile-vaginal intercourse. Second, national

and state laws in some countries (e.g., Canada, England, Finland, the Republic of

Ireland, the United States, and Wales) expanded the “classic” definition of rape (reflec-

tive of a female victim and male perpetrator) (Notonty, 2002) to being gender-neutral

in recognizing a male as a rape victim and females as capable of committing the crime

of rape (Rumney, 2007).

In contrast to most Western and developed countries, rape law reforms have not

occurred in numerous developing countries globally, such as Egypt, Ghana, India, and

Lebanon. Consequently, a narrow range of sexual assaults is included in the legal defi-

nition of rape in these countries. Also, rape victims are likely to be reluctant to report

their victimization as social sensitivity toward sexual violence is relatively low, and

the criminal justice system’s response to rape victimization is slow in these countries

(Adinkrah, 2011; Htun & Jensenius, 2020; Randall & Venkatesh, 2015). Ahrens (2006)

found that rape survivors commonly experienced adverse social reactions when dis-

closing their experience with key community systems (e.g., legal, medical, mental

health, rape crisis centers, and religious community). These included being blamed for

the assault, receiving insensitive responses (i.e., doubting, lack of sympathy), and inef-

fective victim assistance (i.e., lack of help from support providers). Even when rape

victims reported, in some cases, the police refused to file a report or formally charge

the assailant with rape. As such, “negative reactions may thereby serve a silencing

function,” resulting in rape victims’ discontinuation of discussion about their experi-

ence to anyone (Ahrens, 2006, p. 265).

In short, it is possible that the rape law reform in Western countries has broadened

the net and brought more offenders into the criminal justice system in comparison

with the countries not experiencing rape law reform. Thus, the cross-national official

rape rates may be an artifact of the comprehensiveness of the legal definition of rape

across countries. In this study, the “comprehensive” legal definition of rape refers to

the definition that includes broad acts of sexual assaults in the crime of rape.

Consequently, a country that has a comprehensive legal definition of rape is likely to

record a higher rape rate than the one that has a non-comprehensive legal definition