The association between offender socio-economic status and victim-offender relationship in rape offences--revised

The original study by Vaughan (2001) found that there were differences in the frequencies of rape offences, which were dependent on the offender's status and the victim-offender relationship. In order to consider population base rates, a re-analysis of the data was conducted. There were two new findings: 1) there were fewer rapes committed by high status men against strangers compared to low status men; and 2) there were more rapes committed by high status offenders against partners than by low status offenders. These findings support an evolutionary costs-benefits analysis of rape.