Gekoski, A.; Massey, K.; Allen, K.; Ferreira, J.; Dalton, C.T.; Horvath, M.; Davies, K.

'A lot of the time it's dealing with victims who don't want to know, it's all made up, or they've got mental health': rape myths in a large English police force

Article

Gekoski, A., Massey, K., Allen, K., Ferreira, J., Dalton, C.T., Horvath, M. and Davies, K. 2024. 'A lot of the time it's dealing with victims who don't want to know, it's all made up, or they've got mental health': rape myths in a large English police force. International Review of Victimology. 30 (1), pp. 3-24. https://doi.org/10.1177/02697580221142891

Publication dates
Type	Article
Title	'A lot of the time it's dealing with victims who don't want to know, it's all made up, or they've got mental health': rape myths in a large English police force
Authors	Gekoski, A., Massey, K., Allen, K., Ferreira, J., Dalton, C.T., Horvath, M. and Davies, K.
Abstract	Despite an increase in the reporting of rape, convictions in England and Wales have fallen significantly in recent years. Previous research has found high rape myth acceptance among police officers. Given that the police act as gatekeepers to the criminal justice system, subscribing to rape myths may have significant effects upon victim attrition and conviction rates. This study explores police officers’ use of rape myths and how these may impact investigations and prosecutions. A total of 17 semi-structured interviews were conducted with police officers from a large English police force. The interview data were analysed using the qualitative method of thematic analysis. Although there were instances where officers demonstrated some awareness of the need to dispel or counter rape myths, rape myths were employed by most officers, with the most common relating to (1) victim fabrication (‘women lie’) and (2) victim precipitation (‘women ask for it’). Recommendations are made around screening and training for police officers.
Keywords	Rape myths; police officers; victims; rape myth acceptance; investigation
Sustainable Development Goals	16 Peace, justice and strong institutions
	3 Good health and well-being
Middlesex University Theme	Health & Wellbeing
Publisher	SAGE Publications
Journal	International Review of Victimology
ISSN	0269-7580
Electronic	2047-9433
Online	11 Jan 2023
Print	Jan 2024
Publication process dates
Accepted	2023
Deposited	21 May 2025
Output status	Published
Publisher's version	gekoski-et-al-2023-a-lot-of-the-time-it-s-dealing-with-victims-who-don-t-want-to-know-it-s-all-made-up-or-they-ve-got.pdf License CC BY 4.0 File Access Level Open
Copyright Statement	This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)	https://doi.org/10.1177/02697580221142891
Web of Science identifier	WOS:000911855800001

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