Rape Trauma Syndrome: Its Corroborative and Educational Roles

DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00060
AuthorSuzanne M. Zeedyk,Fiona E. Raitt
Published date01 December 1997
Date01 December 1997
Within the criminal justice system the treatment of women who have been
raped has been the subject of much criticism. This has come from those
participating professionally in the legal system, from academics conducting
research on it, and from women who have been affected by their personal
experience of the criminal justice system.1Such criticism focuses on a number
of themes, including the stereotyping of victims, the portrayal of rape as a
sexual rather than a violent crime, and victim-blaming. In the face of these
criticisms, various strategies have been pursued in reforming the law and
pre-trial procedures with the intention of making it easier for women to
report rape and to survive the judicial process. Police awareness has been
increased of the need for sensitivity in handling the interviewing and medical
examination of rape victims.2Rape shield laws circumscribing cross-
examination of a complainant’s sexual history have been enacted in many
states in the United States of America, Canada, New Zealand, England and
Wales, and Scotland.
One recent further strategy to emerge in some jurisdictions has been the
introduction of expert testimony on Rape Trauma Syndrome (RTS) to
support the evidence of the woman complainant. Testimony in regard to
this syndrome has developed in response to the failures of the substantive
and procedural laws to secure convictions and to accord civilized treatment
in court to rape victims. While the admission of evidence on RTS is not yet
a practice accepted in the United Kingdom courts, experience of the gradual
admissibility of other syndromes such as Battered Woman’s Syndrome, in
cases where women kill their violent partners,3or False Memory Syndrome,
in cases where the claims of adult survivors of child abuse are alleged to be
distortions of memory,4suggests that it may only be a matter of time before
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
* Department of Law, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN, Scotland
** Department of Psychology, University of Dundee, Dundee DD1 4HN,
Scotland
We wish to thank Audrey Harrow for her assistance in locating materials for this article, and
Dr. Pamela Ferguson and two anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier draft.
552
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 24, NUMBER 4, DECEMBER 1997
ISSN: 0263–323X, pp. 552–68
Rape Trauma Syndrome: Its Corroborative and
Educational Roles
FIONA E. RAITT* and M. SUZANNE ZEEDYK**
553
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1997
RTS evidence is introduced here. Thus, consideration of RTS evidence
within a United Kingdom context is useful at this early stage because it
permits us to evaluate benefits and drawbacks of admitting this type of
evidence.
In this article, we review the growth of expert testimony on RTS. We
examine the two arguments that are most frequently offered in support of
admitting such evidence: that it can serve an educational and a corroborative
function. While we conclude that RTS evidence can be effective in
challenging societal myths surrounding rape and is therefore useful in an
educational capacity, we argue that its value as corroborative evidence is
questionable and brings with it considerable risk. Indeed, reliance on RTS
evidence as corroboration ultimately leaves women facing the same problems
they have traditionally suffered in the legal system when alleging rape. As
the likelihood of United Kingdom courts admitting RTS evidence increases,
it is important that that decision be taken with caution, and that those
concerned about women’s status in the law be particularly aware of the
consequences.
CONTEXT FOR THE EMERGENCE OF EXPERT TESTIMONY ON
RAPE TRAUMA SYNDROME
It would be unfair to claim that no efforts have been made to address the
manner in which rape functions within the criminal law. Most legal systems
regard it as a grave offence, and a conviction can result in a substantial
prison sentence. Additionally, many jurisdictions have now removed the
long-standing marital rape exception which effectively gave a man carte
blanche to do as he wished in the home. However, many problems remain
and women who have been raped experience these at a number of levels
within the criminal justice system. These include victimization by the system,
perpetuation of rape mythology, inhibitions against reporting incidents of
rape, and a focus on the character and credibility of the complainant.5
Rape remains seriously under-reported, and it continues to be extremely
difficult to secure a conviction. In a report published in 1987, Koss, Gidyez
and Wisniewski produced findings that revealed that of a sample of 3,187
women in the United States of America, 42 per cent reported an experience
which met the legal definition of rape,6but only 25 per cent of those labelled
the incident as rape and only 5 per cent had reported it to the police.7Similar
ndings were disclosed by Russell in a study, again conducted in the United
States of America, involving 930 women, where 44 per cent intimated having
experienced at least one completed or attempted rape. In this survey only
66 of those women, that is, 7 per cent, had reported the incident to the
police.8Studies in the United Kingdom reveal similar trends.9
Statistics on the prosecution and conviction of rapists also remain a matter
of acute concern, justifying the claim that ‘rape is a low-risk, high reward

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