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Rape Reform in Canada: Public Knowledge and Opinion

NCJ Number
163623
Journal
Journal of Family Violence Volume: 11 Issue: 2 Dated: (June 1996) Pages: 133-148
Author(s)
J V Roberts; M G Grossman; R J Gebotys
Date Published
1996
Length
16 pages
Annotation
Rape reform legislation in Canada was designed to change the way sexual assault cases were processed by the criminal justice system and public opinion about crimes of sexual aggression; this article report findings from a representative survey of the Canadian public and an experimental analysis of the effects of the legislation on public knowledge and attitudes.
Abstract
Results from the nationwide survey show that most people are unaware of the semantic shift from the old language of rape and indecent assault to the new crimes of sexual assault; however, there is awareness of the substantive legal changes introduced by the rape reform legislation, such as the fact that husbands are no longer immune from criminal charges that involve their wives as victims. It is clear that rape reform legislation has affected public knowledge of statutory reforms regarding crimes of sexual aggression. Results from the experimental component of this research show that the new sexual assault label has not achieved one of the important goals, namely, that of changing public perceptions of the nature of crimes of sexual aggression. Indeed, one negative effect predicted by feminist writers seems to have emerged: sentencing decisions made by the public for the offense of rape were less severe when the incident was described as a sexual assault. 3 tables and 13 references

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