2002/02/01 by David Lisak, Paul M. Miller · 253 citations
Medicine · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis #Criminal justice #Criminology #Human factors and ergonomics #Injury prevention #Interpersonal communication #Interpersonal violence #Medical emergency #Medicine #Poison control #Psychology #Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending #Recidivism #Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies #Sexual abuse #Social psychology #Suicide prevention
paper · pdf · doi:10.1891/vivi.17.1.73.33638
published in Violence and Victims 17(1), 73-84 (Springer Publishing Company)
crossref issued 2002/02/01 · crossref published 2002/02/01 · crossref published-online 2002/02/01 · crossref published-print 2002/02/01 · openalex publication_date 2002/02/01 · crossref created 2005/10/07 · crossref deposited 2019/09/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/23
Pooling data from four samples in which 1,882 men were assessed for acts of interpersonal violence, we report on 120 men whose self-reported acts met legal definitions of rape or attempted rape, but who were never prosecuted by criminal justice authorities. A majority of these undetected rapists were repeat rapists, and a majority also committed other acts of interpersonal violence. The repeat rapists averaged 5.8 rapes each. The 120 rapists were responsible for 1,225 separate acts of interpersonal violence, including rape, battery, and child physical and sexual abuse. These findings mirror those from studies of incarcerated sex offenders (Abel, Becker, Mittelman, Cunningham-Rathner, Rouleau, & Murphy, 1987; Weinrott and Saylor, 1991), indicating high rates of both repeat rape and multiple types of offending. Implications for the investigation and prosecution of this so-called “hidden” rape are discussed.