4. Reporting Sexual Crimes

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this lecture, we think about the (under)reporting and (under)recording of sexual crimes, focusing in particular on: (i) the percentage of reported rapes that are recorded by the police, and the percentage of recorded rapes that actually end in a conviction; (ii) the reason that so few rapes are reported, let alone recorded; (iii) the idea of 'secondary victimisation' and the cases of Christine Blasey Ford and Lindsay Armstrong, and the so-called 'rugby rape trial'; and (iv) common myths about sexual violence that can result in victims feeling ashamed, guilty and/or blaming themselves for what has happened.

Please note that this module covers a range of sensitive topics related to rape and sexual assault.

Course

In this course, Dr Stephanie Fohring (Northumbria University) provides an introduction to crime statistics. In the first lecture, we think about the subjective nature of crime, and the strengths and limitations of quantitative data (e.g. crime statistics) and qualitative data (e.g. in-depth interviews), respectively. In the second lecture, we think about some of the sources of crime statistics in the UK, particularly police-recorded crime statistics and crime and victimisation surveys. In the third lecture, we consider why there is such a big difference in these two sources of crime statistics – the so-called 'dark figure of crime'. Next, we think about why sexual offences have such so reporting and recording rates. In the fifth and final lecture, we consider how ethnicity affects experiences of crime and criminal justice.

Lecturer

Dr Stephanie Fohring in Senior Lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences at Northumbria University. Her research is victim-focused with particular interest in psychological aspects of victimisation, victimisation surveys, victim labelling, victim experiences of reporting crime and the criminal justice system, violence against women, vicarious trauma and post-traumatic growth.