The Convicted Rapist

Abstract

The issue addressed in this article concerns the characteristics of “official rapists,” that is, males who have been processed by the criminal justice system. Presently available research findings are inadequate for developing a definitive portrait of the rapist since the study populations most often consist of rapists only. In the research for this article, incarcerated rapists were compared with other sex offenders, and with other serious property and violent offenders. A sample of 965 males was drawn from a national survey of inmates in correctional facilities. While a few differences were found (most notably rapists were more likely to be black than other offenders), in general, rapists were most often similar to both serious property and violent offenders. Rapists differed most often from other sex offenders. However, both rapists and other sex offenders were less likely to have previously served time than other serious offenders.