Institute for Excellence in Justice Symposium
What factors determine the content of laws that regulate prosecutions for rape? Clearly feminist political resources should have considerable explanatory power. Yet racial threat theories suggest that fears produced by expansions in African American presence that are likely to heighten anxieties about sexually rapacious African American males ought to explain increases in the severity of the rape codes. This positive relationship should be especially likely in the U.S. South where racial conflicts were so venomous. The results show that traditionalism indicators, such as fundamentalist strength and agricultural employment, have negative relationships with rape code severity, but indicators that capture feminist political resources have positive effects. The racial findings, however, are contingent. Both linear and nonlinear specifications indicate that larger African American proportions in the non-southern states lead to reductions in rape law strength. Yet in accord with expectations derived from racial threat theory, larger African American populations in the South lead to stronger rape codes.