Assessing Student Attitudes Toward Sexual Assault by Using a Mock Trial

Abstract

Despite the prevalence of sexual assault on college campuses, college students’ views regarding rape continue to be an understudied area. Using criminal justice and sociology students who either attended a mock sexual assault trial or viewed the trial video in their class, this study examined students’ attitudes toward rape and rape myth acceptance. Surveys assessed what students believed the verdict should be and why, along with questions surrounding rape myths and beliefs regarding women. Results indicate that female students were more likely to find the defendant guilty. None of the attitudinal variables or plans to work in the criminal justice system, however, had an effect on the verdict. Multiple factors such as gender, race, and hostility toward women influenced attitudes regarding rape myths. These findings suggest that attitudes may be less important when determining sexual assault defendants’ guilt than the facts of the case. Policy implications are discussed.

Notes

¹ Although sexual assault can take many forms, especially in terms of the gender of the perpetrator and victim, the mock trial and subsequent questions on the survey dealt specifically with male perpetrator and female victim.

² Only six students (three from the sociology class and three from the criminal justice classes) attending those classes chose not to complete the survey, leaving a response rate of 97.4%. Two of these students in the criminal justice classes and one in the sociology class classes opted out because they had already completed it in a different criminal justice class.

³ The text for the mock trial was distributed by the Wisconsin Coalition against Sexual Assault (http://www.wcasa.org/) and modified to fit the university name and location. The script is over 30 pages and the mock trial itself lasted over one hour. When the mock trial video was shown in classes, only classes that lasted at least 1.25 hours were used.