The Second Rape: Society's Continued Betrayal of the Victim

Discusses the subtle way in which victims encounter a second rape by the people who are suppose to help the individuals overcome the trauma of the first rape

Violent physical rape is horrifying and the psychic trauma lingers. Moreover, according to psychologists Madigan and Gamble, if the attack is reported, a ``second rape''--the repeated humiliation and frustration the victim suffers in the maze of the criminal-justice system--begins. Through interviews with women who have been raped by strangers, acquaintances, or former lovers, a picture emerges here of a crime in which the victim is still judged as guilty or more so than the attacker. Frightened, in shock and pain, she must know to get an immediate physical examination and request that evidence be preserved. She must undergo interrogation by sometimes unsympathetic, often untrained, police officers, who seize on inconsistencies to avoid prosecuting the case. The district attorney represents the state, not the victim; juries still lean toward viewing a woman who has been raped as ``asking for it.'' It is no wonder that rape is the most underreported crime. However, the authors say these important things in a drawn-out explication that might better have been a long magazine article than a book, and they fail to take proper notice of the fact that rape crisis centers and police-officer special training have been established across the country, and that society in general is now taking a harder line against acquaintance rape. Forceful but overlong. Most useful is a chapter on ``Survival Tactics,'' with explicit suggestions for rape victims on coping with bureaucracy, delays, and harassment. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

The second rape is what happens after a rape victim reports the crime; the second rapists are the police, medical personnel, counselors, attorneys, district attorneys, judges, and others who reintroduce the feeling of violation and trauma. The authors, psychologists who counsel rape survivors, have divided their book into two parts with five rape stories and four chapters on the second rapists. They also introduce a critique of our patriarchal society that keeps women from reporting (only ten percent do) and keeps victims from getting justice (only 20 percent of the indicted are convicted). While this story has been told many times before, the book serves as a reminder of how little has changed in society's treatment of rape victims. Recommended for social science collections.
-Janice Dunham, John Jay Coll. Lib., New York
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.