The public portrayal of rape sentencing: What the public learns of rape sentencing from newspapers

Criminal Law Review

Volumn 1998, Issue 7, 1998, Pages 455-464

  Soothill, Keith ^a   Grover, Chris ^a  

^a LANCASTER UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 3042956974     PISSN: 0011135X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (22)

1. M. Hough, "People Talking About Punishment" (1996) 35 Howard Journal of Criminal Justice 191-214.
2. ibid. p.208.
3. M. Hough and J.V. Roberts, Attitudes to punishment: findings from the British Crime Survey (Home Office Research Study 179) London: Home Office, 1997.
4. R. Reiner, "Media Made Criminality: The Representation of Crime in the Mass Media", in M. Maguire, R. Morgan and R. Reiner, (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997).
5. See K. Soothill, "The Changing Face of Rape" (1991) 31 British Journal of Criminology 383-392 (Reprinted in J. Temkin (ed.), Rape and the Criminal Justice System (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing, 1995), pp.165-174); K. Soothill and C. Grover, "Changes in the Newspaper Reporting of Rape Trials since the Second World War", Research Bulletin (Home Office Research and Statistics Department, No. 37, 1995), pp.45-49.
6. See K. Soothill, "The Changing Face of Rape" (1991) 31 British Journal of Criminology 383-392 (Reprinted in J. Temkin (ed.), Rape and the Criminal Justice System (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing, 1995), pp.165-174); K. Soothill and C. Grover, "Changes in the Newspaper Reporting of Rape Trials since the Second World War", Research Bulletin (Home Office Research and Statistics Department, No. 37, 1995), pp.45-49.
7. See K. Soothill, "The Changing Face of Rape" (1991) 31 British Journal of Criminology 383-392 (Reprinted in J. Temkin (ed.), Rape and the Criminal Justice System (Aldershot: Dartmouth Publishing, 1995), pp.165-174); K. Soothill and C. Grover, "Changes in the Newspaper Reporting of Rape Trials since the Second World War", Research Bulletin (Home Office Research and Statistics Department, No. 37, 1995), pp.45-49.
8. K. Soothill and A. Jack, "How Rape is Reported" (1975) 32 New Society 702-704.
9. Soothill and Grover, above, n.5.
10. A. Hay, K. Soothill and S. Walby, "Seducing the Public by Rape Reports" (1980) 53 New Society 214-215.
11. Cases identified as "not tried" in the Criminal Statitstics are not reported in newspapers and these are not included in the subsequent analysis.
12. In addition, there are those defined in the Criminal Statistics as "otherwise disposed of" involving a miscellaneous range of disposals. These have been disregarded as there are small numbers and such cases are rarely reported in the press.
13. However, it needs to be stressed that the coverage in 1961 was perhaps biased by two cases which had several co-defendants. Seven of the nine defendants received prison sentences of two years or less while their co-defendants were punished more severely. The small number of cases in the early years may contribute to chance fluctuations.
14. Soothill and Jack, 1975; Hay, Soothill and Walby, 1980.
15. Soothill 1991.
16. K. Soothill and S. Walby, Sex Crime in the News (London: Routledge, 1991).
17. C. Lloyd and R. Walmsley, Changes in Rape Offences and Sentencing (Home Office Research Study no. 105) (London: HMSO, 1989).
18. K. Soothill and C. Grover, "Marital rape in the news". (1994) 5 Journal of Forensic Psychiatry, 539-549.
19. S. Lees, "Media Reporting of rape: The 1993 British 'Date Rape' Controversy", in D. Kidd-Hewitt and R. Osborne (eds), Crime and the Media: The Post-Modern Spectacle (London: Pluto Press, 1995), pp.107-103.
20. Hough (1996), p.211.
21. ibid. p.208.
22. ibid. p.211.