TY - JOUR
T1 - Same-sex and race-based disparities in statutory rape arrests
AU - Chaffin, Mark
AU - Chenoweth, Stephanie
AU - Letourneau, Elizabeth J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2014.
PY - 2016/1/1
Y1 - 2016/1/1
N2 - This study tests a liberation hypothesis for statutory rape incidents, specifically that there may be same-sex and race/ethnicity arrest disparities among statutory rape incidents and that these will be greater among statutory rape than among forcible sex crime incidents. 26,726 reported incidents of statutory rape as defined under state statutes and 96,474 forcible sex crime incidents were extracted from National Incident-Based Reporting System data sets. Arrest outcomes were tested using multilevel modeling. Same-sex statutory rape pairings were rare but had much higher arrest odds. A victim–offender romantic relationship amplified arrest odds for samesex pairings, but damped arrest odds for male-on-female pairings. Samesex disparities were larger among statutory than among forcible incidents. Female-on-male incidents had uniformly lower arrest odds. Race/ethnicity effects were smaller than gender effects and more complexly patterned. The findings support the liberation hypothesis for same-sex statutory rape arrest disparities, particularly among same-sex romantic pairings. Support for race/ ethnicity-based arrest disparities was limited and mixed.
AB - This study tests a liberation hypothesis for statutory rape incidents, specifically that there may be same-sex and race/ethnicity arrest disparities among statutory rape incidents and that these will be greater among statutory rape than among forcible sex crime incidents. 26,726 reported incidents of statutory rape as defined under state statutes and 96,474 forcible sex crime incidents were extracted from National Incident-Based Reporting System data sets. Arrest outcomes were tested using multilevel modeling. Same-sex statutory rape pairings were rare but had much higher arrest odds. A victim–offender romantic relationship amplified arrest odds for samesex pairings, but damped arrest odds for male-on-female pairings. Samesex disparities were larger among statutory than among forcible incidents. Female-on-male incidents had uniformly lower arrest odds. Race/ethnicity effects were smaller than gender effects and more complexly patterned. The findings support the liberation hypothesis for same-sex statutory rape arrest disparities, particularly among same-sex romantic pairings. Support for race/ ethnicity-based arrest disparities was limited and mixed.
KW - Gender
KW - Race
KW - Sex crimes
KW - Statutory rape
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84960392867&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84960392867&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/0886260514555132
DO - 10.1177/0886260514555132
M3 - Article
C2 - 25416040
AN - SCOPUS:84960392867
SN - 0886-2605
VL - 31
SP - 26
EP - 48
JO - Journal of Interpersonal Violence
JF - Journal of Interpersonal Violence
IS - 1
ER -