A vignette methodology was used to examine the effects of varying a sexual assault offender's ascribed race and class on attributions of responsibility to the victim, sentencing judgements for the offender, and perceptions of the victim. Respondents were 183 young white South African English-speaking students, male and female, domiciled in university residences in 1987 at the University of Cape Town. Measured by sentencing decisions, subjects were significantly more punitive towards an offender described as black, and towards an offender described as working class, than towards an offender described as white. Attitudes towards the victim did not differ significantly across offender conditions. Women attributed feelings of stigmatization to the victim significantly more than men across all offender conditions, while men attributed such feelings significantly less where a white assailant was depicted. The results are discussed within the context of the interaction of race and class prejudice in apartheid society, and in relation to previous literature concerning attitudes towards rape.
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