Rape myths, jury deliberations, and conversation analysis: Examining conversational practices used to undermine rape complaints within (mock) jury deliberations

Emma Richardson, Laura Jenkins and Dominic Willmott

Journal of Criminal Justice, 2025, vol. 99, issue C

Abstract: Despite decades of research and policy campaigns, low rates of reports, prosecutions and convictions in rape cases persist. Culturally shared prejudicial beliefs, known as ‘rape myths’, are widely reported to undermine the perceived credibility of complainants in jury deliberations. Most evidence of rape myths is abstracted from the interactional practices in which they are built. Adopting a Discursive Psychological approach, we examine how such ‘myths’ are embedded into jurors' accounts during deliberations. Employing conversation analysis we interrogate how ‘rape myths’ are used within 435 minutes of deliberations from a realistic live trial re-enactment. We describe jurors' use of, ‘discrediting contrastive devices’; used to discredit the complainant's testimony by contrasting their behaviour with what a “typical” person would do prior to, during, and following a rape. We explore rape myths not as social-cognitive states, but as interactional devices deployed while describing, arguing, and persuading, and that are to be supported, resisted, and reformulated by jurors. We argue that it is crucial to understand the circulation of ‘rape myths’ as cultural knowledge and logic in use. We offer further insight into the existence and impact of prejudicial rape myths within jury deliberations, contributing to ongoing debate in rape trial jury functionality and reform.

Keywords: Rape myths; Jury deliberations; Conversation analysis; Juror decision making; Rape and serious sexual offences [RASSO] (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047235225001102
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jcjust:v:99:y:2025:i:c:s0047235225001102

DOI: 10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2025.102461

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Criminal Justice is currently edited by Matthew DeLisi

More articles in Journal of Criminal Justice from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().