An examination of the bedroom rapist

Research has found that sexual offenders are rational and consistent in their crime site selection strategies. However, one crime site location that has been largely understudied in sexual offending research is the ‘bedroom rape’ attack. Bedroom rapes are described as sexual assaults that occur within a victim’s own residence. This study uses Generalized Estimating Equations to examine data from a sample of 347 sexual assault events to determine which offender modus operandi and temporal variables are significant predictors of bedroom rape events. Findings indicate that a number of modus operandi and temporal variables are significant predictors. For instance, bedroom rape events are more likely to involve premeditation, coercion and an offender who commits a burglary in addition to the sexual offence. Conclusions on why offenders may choose this type of crime attack location are drawn and implications for situational crime prevention measures are discussed.