Barriers to reporting: Police officers discuss male rape

Male rape is an underreported crime and an under-researched phenomenon
within Psychology generally. The thesis presents a discourse analytic study,
which suggests an understanding of male rape from the perspective of culturally
embedded understandings of sex, constructed notions of hegemonic masculinity
and sexuality in Western society. This thesis focused on front counter police and
their accounting practices for male rape, to explore whether they hold culturallybound
discourses to explain male rape as laypeople do. The police are
instrumental in managing this crime and will have interaction with survivors;
hence information concerning their perspective of male rape is of vital
importance, particularly in relation to the complexities of male rape and barriers to
reporting. The study focused on interactional negotiations of meanings. Thus,
discursive psychology (DP) theory and methodology were used to analyse the
focus group transcripts. Four interpretative repertories were identified; male
sexuality and rape repertoire, barriers to reporting rape repertoire, ambivalent
society repertoire and media influence repertoire. Within each of the repertoires,
two distinct patterns of talk were identified. Generally, the repertoires provided
several implications for theory and practice in relation to front counter police
officers' accounting for male rape; namely, that they did not see the culture of
policing as necessary or able to change with respect to how male rape is viewed
and dealt with, particularly in relation to other 'institutions' such as the media and
the law. The front counter officers despite training, nevertheless drew on common
cultural stereotypes of male rape, and thus suggested that police officers could
undergo extensive awareness training on male rape to understand the
complexities encompassing the phenomenon revealed here.

This thesis supplied via ROAR to UEL-registered users is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication of any part of the material is not permitted, except for your personal use for the purposes of non-commercial research and private study in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission from the copyright-holder for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, for sale or otherwise, to anyone. No quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement.