Summary:
Introduction: Rape is considered as a wrongful act, apportioned/imputed to the perpetrator, punished by the law and, therefore, numbers among the crimes against sexual freedom and financial exploitation of sexual life crimes. The discovery of in common characteristics, as well as the differences between crime offenders, demands a systematic and detailed investigative effort. According to the existing bibliography, sexual crime offenders comprise an heterogeneous group, where the typologies are distinguished according to the personal characteristics (social, demographic, psychological, as well as the offenders motivations.
Objective: The approach of rape as a phenomenon with biological, psychological and social basis is attempted in this dissertation. The theoretical approach of the phenomenon, as well as its penal and therapeutic handling are, also, under review. This dissertation discusses rape specifically from the offenders background and point of view. Thorough, the rapists’ against adults demographic, psychological and social characteristics heterogeneity is examined through the procedure of a corresponding quantitative research study, that took place in 2020 in the internment camp of Grevena, with 30 inmates as the total control group.
Methodology: The questionnaire that were given to the participants referred to demographical, social and psychological variables. The first questionnaire is consisted in questions with demographic and social characteristics (age, homeland, home place, occupational status, family status, educational level, nationality, relation with the family, criminal record, overuse/addiction, type, level of acquaintanceship with the victim, season of commission, place of commission, time of commission). The rest three questionnaire are psychometric instruments, that evaluate psychological variables, such as existence of psychopathology (obsessive compulsion, interpersonal sensitivity, depression, somatization, anxiety, hostility, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, psychotisism), personality disorders, as well as level of intelligence. Diagnosis of psychopathology clinical syndromes was accomplished with the Symptom Check-List 90 (SCL-90) instrument, the evaluation of personal disorders with the self administered diagnostic instrument Personality Diagnostic Questionnaire – 4 (PDQ – 4) and, finally, the valuation of the basic cognition with the Raven Progressive Matrices (RPM) instrument. Processing and data analysis was accomplished with the SPSS statistic instrument and, in particular, by the use of Fischer’s Exact Test for Count Data and Pearson’s Chi-squared test.
Results: In summary, the majority of the group was between the ages of 36 – 55 (53,3%), of Greek nationality (96,7%) and they mentioned village as their homeland (30%). Concerning their occupational status, 53,3% were unemployed, while referring to their family status 40% declared that were married. Most of the participants had graduated secondary education (elementary school) (40%), mentioned good relationship with the family (70%), had never been convicted in the past (63,3%) and did not mention overuse/addiction record (56,7%). 43,3% of the participants mentioned overuse or addiction to substances and alcohol was the main type (54,5%). Referring to the commission, the majority of the group acted during summer (30%), in private place (66,7%), at night (40%), while the offender and the victim were relatives (40%). Evaluation of personality disorders showed that 33% of the total group did not satisfy the criteria for any personality disorder, whereas 50% satisfied the criteria for paranoid and obsessive – compulsive personality disorder and 36,7% for schizoid personality disorder. The highest scores were counted in Paranoid ideation subscale, whereas no statistically significant connection between paranoid personality disorder and the subscale was found (p = 0,714). Statistically significant connection was found between overuse/addiction to substances and antisocial personality disorder (p = 0,026), schizoid personality disorder (p = 0,023) and borderline personality disorder (p = 0,049). Statistically significant connection was found between depressive personality disorder and Depression subscale (p = 0,011).
Conclusion: Despite the heterogeneity that describes rape offenders over their social, demographic and psychological characteristics, there are a few common variables noticed through the limited bibliography and research. Therefore, purpose of this study is to cover the gap in Greek bibliography, referring to sexual crime offenders’ characteristics, providing the stimulus for further analysis and research, in order to take shape a more informed insight not only about the nature of rape and its offenders, but also about the right penal and therapeutic treatment choice. Therefore, an interdisciplinary collaboration among the fields of sociology, forensic psychiatry, law and criminology is considered essential, in order to provide their services in rape prevention and suppression.
