CPS and Equally Ours: Research into the public understanding of Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO) and consent

Summary report: Rape and serious sexual offences: public understanding and attitudes and Reframing Rape: Effective communication about rape

Executive Summary

The CPS and Equally Ours Research into the public understanding of Rape and Serious Sexual Offences (RASSO) and consent project was carried out in two stages:

• Stage 1: assessed the public understanding of RASSO, with a key focus on current public assumptions and misconceptions¹.
• Stage 2: assessed effective communication about rape, with a focus on reframing rape narratives².

The first stage of the research involved a literature review, discourse analysis, stakeholder roundtables and interviews, five focus groups and a survey of over 3000 participants. This stage assessed the public response to common ‘dominant³’ rape statements based on assumptions and misconceptions and their response to ‘alternative⁴’ suspect-centric⁵ statements.

The research showed that, overall, the public’s accurate understanding of rape is outweighed by false beliefs, misunderstanding, lack of knowledge, and underlying stereotypes.

For example, across the whole research, stranger rape involving physical violence was one of the most common perceptions of rape, and the misconception that women often make up rape allegations was prevalent. There were mixed views about the misconception that it’s women’s responsibility to prevent rape, and considerable confusion about consent in general, but especially in relation to alcohol and drugs, and to reasonable belief in consent.

Across the public survey, on average less than half of the respondents clearly agreed with ‘alternative’ suspect-centric narratives. The rest either agreed with rape assumptions and misconceptions or were unsure⁶.

The biggest issue in relation to survey respondent demographics was age - with 18–24-year-old respondents supporting the assumptions and misconceptions more than older respondents.

More positively, the research showed that public understanding of some accurate, evidence-based facts and narratives about rape has grown over the past 20 years. For example, that being in a relationship or marriage does not mean consent to sex can always be assumed; that a victim may not always fight back or go straight to the police; and that if a man has been drinking or taking drugs, he is still responsible if he rapes someone.

However, social science research acknowledges that ‘social-desirability’ bias - a tendency of attitudinal survey respondents to answer questions in a manner that will be viewed favourably by others - can impact on findings. In addition, the focus groups illustrated that although there was initial support for statements about rape that replaced assumptions with fact and values-based narratives, when discussed in more detail they often covered deeper-seated entrenched misconceptions and stereotypes. For example, the groups agreed that “there are few false rape allegations”, but then raised, and talked at length, about a number of situations in which they felt that false allegations may be made - from “jealousy”, “for revenge” or “if (victims) have mental health issues”. Therefore, while recognising the more positive findings of some more accurate, evidence-based narratives about rape, caution may be needed.

Overall, clear themes emerged showing that the public continue to hold narratives around stranger rape as the primary model for rape, beliefs about what ‘real rape’ looks like, how victims should behave, and a tendency to want to either exonerate the accused, find reasons for their actions, or set them apart from ‘ordinary’ men. And many of the assumptions and misconceptions have moved into the digital age, for example surrounding the behaviour of victims on-line.

All data, findings, conclusions and implications from this first stage of the research are outlined in the RASSO: Public understanding and attitudes report.

The second stage of the research, created suspect-centric messages that replaced RASSO assumptions and misconceptions, about both suspects and victims, with fact and values-based narratives. The impact of the messages on public understanding was then tested through the focus groups and the survey.

Historically ‘myth-busting’ has been used to refute rape misconceptions, but in practice the repetition of myths can unwittingly amplify them and has been shown to reinforce them. Instead, the findings show that ‘reframing the rape narrative’ is required to ensure a suspect-centric approach and to recognise the complexity of victim responses, rather than ‘refuting rape myths’.

The message testing demonstrated that a specific method of ‘values-based framing’ of messages can be effectively applied to RASSO and provided a proof of concept for this approach. This method builds on the 2022 Government Communications Service (GCS) guidance on developing effective counter-disinformation strategies⁷. When values are added, facts that may not initially align with a person’s existing inaccurate knowledge and beliefs are more likely to be heard and assimilated, rather than questioned and rejected.

Values-based framing is used to help support accurate, evidence-based facts and narratives through the addition of intrinsic values such as freedom, responsibility, equality and social justice. For example, adding the value of freedom to a message - ‘being raped can destroy a victim’s world, taking away their freedom, trust and safety for the rest of their life’ - is shown to support the embedding of the overall narrative.

This positive values-based reframing of accurate evidence-based information, as an alternative way to address mis- and dis-information, is explained in more detail in the Stage 2 report Reframing Rape: Effective Communication about rape report.

In this second stage, values-based messages were first explored in the focus groups and then further reframed and tested through the survey. The reframed messages were shown to the same cohort of survey participants as in the stage one findings and comparisons were made of their understanding before and after the messaging.

Evidence from the research showed that the suspect-centric reframed messages both expanded knowledge and understanding of RASSO and shifted respondents’ thinking away from the common assumptions and misconceptions. This is congruent with the ‘proactive promotion strategy’ recommended in the GCS ‘Wall of Beliefs’ handbook⁸.

Almost all the topics identified in the focus groups as reflecting support for assumptions and misconceptions saw an increase in support for the ‘alternative’ suspect-centric narratives in response to the revised messages tested in the survey.

The evidence from this research can help support the criminal justice system in identifying where assumptions and misconceptions may continue to be prevalent and provide a way of replacing them with alternative, fact and value-based rape narratives. In using this suspect-centric values-based reframing, messages need to be tailored to the context and situation; it is not possible to just cut-and paste off-the-shelf lines. An easy-access Reframing Good Practice Guide has been developed to support this reframing and more effective RASSO communication.

To request copies of:

• The full Summary Report including the Reframing Good Practice Guide and
• Stage 1: RASSO: Public understanding and attitudes report and
• Stage 2: Reframing Rape: Effective Communication about rape report

please contact [email protected].