Sex crimes

Sexual violence (SV) is a significant problem that impacts women on college campuses at an alarming rate (Fischer et al., 2018). The body of research published regarding women’s experiences with SV on college campuses disproportionately focuses on Caucasian women (Oney, 2018). Few studies address the specific concerns of minority women and their experiences with SV and even fewer studies serve to identify contributing factors to their recovery. In addition to the prevalence of SV on college campuses, the rates of rape myth acceptance (RMA) that have been studied among this age group focus primarily on White cisgender men and women, and again, are understudied in women who identify as racial/ethnic minorities (Oney, 2018).
Research correlates high levels of RMA with a decreased willingness to accept recovery-promoting assistance post-SV, which reduces a survivor’s willingness to access to services such as counseling (Oney, 2018). The objective of this study was to determine if rape myth acceptance predicts recovery self-efficacy and if experiences of SV serve as a mediating variable between recovery-self efficacy and RMA in ethnic and racial minority college-age women.
The results of this study indicate that RMA does not predict or mediate the variables of recovery self-efficacy and SV. A linear regression analysis was used to establish if RMA predicts recovery self-efficacy, the factors within the scales were not correlated and additional tests yielded non-statistically significant results; (b = -0.02, t = -0.29, p = .77). The study also was unable to provide evidence of experiences of SV being a mediating variable between RMA and recovery self-efficacy through a mediation analysis (b =.00, SE = .002, 95% CI = [-.004, .004], p =.89).

This study examined the effectiveness of two rape prevention programs on rape-supportive beliefs among college students. The participants were divided into three groups. One group participated in a didactic rape prevention program involving primarily lecture and video instruction. The second group participated in an experiential rape prevention program utilizing improvisational theater. The third group was the control group. The 55 participants completed two attitude scales developed by Burt (1980): Adversarial Sexual Beliefs (ASB) and Rape Myth Acceptance (RMA). They then participated in their workshop and took the attitude scales again as a post-treatment test. Two weeks later, the participants took a follow-up post-treatment test using the same attitude scales. Results indicated there were no significant differences in effectiveness between the interventions in reducing rape-supportive beliefs. However, the didactic program produced a significant reduction in rape-supportive beliefs compared to the control group as measured by the RMA scale. Participants who had been victims of sexual assault scored significantly lower than non-victims in the ASB and RMA across all groups. It was also found that participants who had any previous experience with sexual assault, such as familiarity with a victim or an offender, scored significantly lower in rape-supportive beliefs after participating in the didactic program than participants who had no previous experience with sexual assault. Based on these findings, didactic programs appear to be the most effective format for reducing rape-supportive beliefs among college students.