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Rape Law Reform and Instrumental Change in Six Urban Jurisdictions

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Julie Horney  and
Cassia Spohn
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Abstract

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Concerns about the treatment of rape victims and attrition in rape cases prompted a nationwide movement to reform state rape laws. In this study we evaluate the impact of rape law reforms on reports of rape and the processing of rape cases in six urban jurisdictions—Detroit, Chicago, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston, and Washington, D.C. Our results strongly suggest that the ability of rape reform legislation to affect case outcomes is limited. Time-series analyses revealed that predicted results were found in only one of the six jurisdictions, and there the results were limited.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 25 , Issue 1 , 1991 , pp. 117 - 153
Copyright
Copyright © 1991 by The Law and Society Association

Footnotes

This mansucript is based on work supported by the National Institute of Justice under Grant No. SES 8508323 and by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 85-IJ-CX-0048. Points of view are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the U.S. Department of Justice or the National Science Foundation.

Numerous people made important contributions to this research effort over a period of several years. We would especially like to thank our project associates who supervised the data collection at the study sites: James Gibson, University of Houston; Kathryn Newcomer, George Washington University; Karen O'Connor, Emory University; Joseph Peterson, University of Illinois at Chicago; and David Rauma, University of Michigan. We would also like to thank our data collectors, who coded data on thousands of cases from court records.

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