Jury Decision‐making in Rape Trials

Abstract

This chapter presents a case study of a 19-year-old woman, whose case has become known as ‘the girl of Qatif’, was kidnapped and raped by a group of men in Saudi Arabia. An apparent leniency bias is most evident—and problematic—within rape trials. Sexual victimisation remains extremely prevalent worldwide. Under-reporting remains a major contributor of attrition in perpetration-to-conviction rates for rape offences. Yet report-to-conviction figures continue to highlight high rates of attrition for rape allegations, and, globally, three key stages consistently explain where rape cases drop out of the criminal justice system: complainant withdrawal and retraction of allegations, police and prosecutorial case discontinuation and jury acquittals at trial. Rape myths are thought to derive from a multitude of socially embedded misconceptions about rape and broader social norms surrounding gender and sex.

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