Students’ Perceptions of Justice: Application of Sanctions, Guilt, and Responsibility in Campus Sexual Assault Cases

Abstract

Despite growing attention to adjudication of campus sexual assault cases, little is known how students perceive “justice” for such cases. The present study examined whether victim, perpetrator, and assault characteristics influenced students’ perceptions of: whether a sanctionable violation occurred; the type of sanction to be applied; perceived severity of the sanction; proportion of guilt attributable to the victim and perpetrator; and level of responsibility of the victim and perpetrator. Fourteen factors pertaining to potential negative evaluation of rape victims were derived; thus, a non-factorial vignette survey design focusing only on each main effect was employed. 846 college students responded to one of four versions of a randomly distributed survey each containing eight vignettes that varied to represent all levels of the 14 factors. Students were not consistent in their application of sanctions or assignment of guilt or responsibility for the sexual assault vignettes, but rather were influenced in their ratings for 10 of the 14 factors. Students responded differentially to levels of the following factors: psychological impact on the victim, victim’s medical consequences, reason for the victim’s incapacitation leading to assault, consistency of victim’s and perpetrator’s accounts of the assault, sexual orientation of the victim, type of forced sex, number of perpetrators involved, fraternity membership of the perpetrator, gender of the perpetrator, and victim’s initial display of sexual interest in the perpetrator. Cases consistent with rape myths appear to influence students’ perceptions of justice. Findings are discussed in terms of implications for research and prevention programming.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Sample Vignettes

Sample Vignette #1 (Victim Characteristic)

Emily was invited to a party off campus at the house of some students who her friends knew. During the party, a guy named Josh, who seemed interested in her, kept pouring liquor into Emily’s glass when she was not looking. She became so intoxicated that her friends later said that she could no longer talk to them and they thought she would probably pass out. At this point, Josh took her to his room upstairs where he took off her clothes and had intercourse with her. She reported the incident to her Resident Advisor the next day.

Sample Vignette #2 (Perpetrator Characteristic)

Christa was invited to a party off campus at the house of some students who her friends knew. She was excited to go because the basketball team, including the star player, were supposed to show up at the party. Later in the evening, the star player, Trent, seemed very interested in her and convinced Christa to leave the party and go to his room a block away to get some liquor. In his room, Trent became very aggressive, pushed her on to the bed where he held her down and proceeded to have intercourse with her. Christa reported the incident to her Resident Advisor the next day.

Sample Vignette #3 (Sexual Assault Characteristic)

Courtney was invited to a party off campus at the house of some students who her friends knew. One guy at the party, Charlie, seemed very interested in her and they spent time together during the evening. Later, Charlie convinced Courtney to come upstairs to his room because he said he had some liquor. In the room, there were two other guys waiting who, along with Charlie, became very aggressive, pushed her onto the bed where they held her down and each proceeded to have intercourse with her. Courtney reported the incident the next day to her Resident Advisor.

Note. The full list of the vignettes can be obtained by contacting the first author.

Appendix 2

Table 6 Chi-square Dependency test results on the invariance of students’ demographics across four versions of the survey