Interviewing Rape Victims

This study presents a unique overview of the cultural, social and practical aspects of interviewing rape victims. Exploring a range of issues that affect rape cases including discourse, gender, attitudes and victim's rights, Rich reveals the complexities of sexual assault and looks to how communities can work to respond to and combat such violence.

Rape remains one of the most controversial issues within criminal justice and receives high profile coverage internationally. Despite the many changes there have been to the law, practice and procedure in the investigation of rape allegations, and support available for victims, victims are routinely blamed for their victimization. Only a very small number of perpetrators ever face prosecution, let alone conviction. This book aims to take stock of current thinking and research about rape and the way it is handled in practice within the criminal justice system, and to challenge some of the widely held but inaccurate beliefs about rape. It brings together leading researchers in the field from psychology, sociology and law, considering new research and presenting new data from a strong theoretical and contextual base. The main focus of the book is on adult victims of rape, with chapters exploring such issues as rape and the media, the use of alcohol and drugs in rape, police decision making on rape cases, conviction patterns in rape trials, and interviewing victims of rape and sexual assault.

This study presents a unique overview of the cultural, social and practical aspects of interviewing rape victims. Exploring a range of issues that affect rape cases including discourse, gender, attitudes and victim's rights, Rich reveals the complexities of sexual assault and looks to how communities can work to respond to and combat such violence.

The appropriate and sensitive use of anatomical dolls is one of the topics explored in this comprehensive introduction to the process of interviewing child sexual abuse victims. Co-creator of the dolls, Marcia Morgan, takes readers through an interview from beginning to end. She provides guidelines on how to create an environment intended both to minimize a child's trauma and to enhance the amount, quality and validity of information obtained. She examines problems practitioners might encounter with young children and provides material on pre-interview preparation, training exercises and a listing of audio-visual resources.

In this thought-provoking and playful short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the boundaries of fiction with inimitable wit and seductive intelligence. Wallace's stories present a world where the bizarre and the banal are interwoven and where hideous men appear in many guises. Among the stories are 'The Depressed Person,' a dazzling and blackly humorous portrayal of a woman's mental state; 'Adult World,' which reveals a woman's agonized consideration of her confusing sexual relationship with her husband; and 'Brief Interviews with Hideous Men,' a dark, hilarious series of imagined interviews with men on the subject of their relations with women. Wallace delights in leftfield observation, mining the absurd, the surprising, and the illuminating from every situation. This collection will enthrall DFW fans, and provides a perfect introduction for new readers.

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2018 “Brilliant, necessary reading on the ways we talk—and, more importantly, don’t talk—about rape and rape culture.” —HelloGiggles “What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is brilliant, frank, empowering, and urgently necessary. Sohaila Abdulali has created a powerful tool for examining rape culture and language on the individual, societal, and global level that everyone can benefit from reading.” —Jill Soloway In the tradition of Rebecca Solnit, a beautifully written, deeply intelligent, searingly honest—and ultimately hopeful—examination of sexual assault and the global discourse on rape told through the perspective of a survivor, writer, counselor, and activist After surviving gang-rape at seventeen in Mumbai, Sohaila Abdulali was indignant about the deafening silence that followed and wrote a fiery piece about the perception of rape—and rape victims—for a women’s magazine. Thirty years later, with no notice, her article reappeared and went viral in the wake of the 2012 fatal gang-rape in New Delhi, prompting her to write a New York Times op-ed about healing from rape that was widely circulated. Now, Abdulali has written What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape—a thoughtful, generous, unflinching look at rape and rape culture. Drawing on her own experience, her work with hundreds of survivors as the head of a rape crisis center in Boston, and three decades of grappling with rape as a feminist intellectual and writer, Abdulali tackles some of our thorniest questions about rape, articulating the confounding way we account for who gets raped and why—and asking how we want to raise the next generation. In interviews with survivors from around the world we hear moving personal accounts of hard-earned strength, humor, and wisdom that collectively tell the larger story of what rape means and how healing can occur. Abdulali also points to the questions we don't talk about: Is rape always a life-definining event? Is one rape worse than another? Is a world without rape possible? What We Talk About When We Talk About Rape is a book for this #MeToo and #TimesUp age that will stay with readers—men and women alike—for a long, long time.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A devastating exposé of colleges and local law enforcement.... A substantive deep dive into the morass of campus sex crimes, where the victim is too often treated like the accused.” —Entertainment Weekly Missoula, Montana, is a typical college town, home to a highly regarded state university whose beloved football team inspires a passionately loyal fan base. Between January 2008 and May 2012, hundreds of students reported sexual assaults to the local police. Few of the cases were properly handled by either the university or local authorities. In this, Missoula is also typical. In these pages, acclaimed journalist Jon Krakauer investigates a spate of campus rapes that occurred in Missoula over a four-year period. Taking the town as a case study for a crime that is sadly prevalent throughout the nation, Krakauer documents the experiences of five victims: their fear and self-doubt in the aftermath; the skepticism directed at them by police, prosecutors, and the public; their bravery in pushing forward and what it cost them. These stories cut through abstract ideological debate about acquaintance rape to demonstrate that it does not happen because women are sending mixed signals or seeking attention. They are victims of a terrible crime, deserving of fairness from our justice system. Rigorously researched, rendered in incisive prose, Missoula stands as an essential call to action.