Contextual Contributors to the Police Reporting of Sexual and Other Violent Crime and the Role of Reporting in Victim Distress
Open AccessSexual crime is a pervasive, world-wide crisis with consistently low police reporting rates. Literature has identified a variety of predictors which influence a victim’s decision to report the victimization. These include, but are not limited to, the type of crime experienced, the victim’s relationship to the perpetrator, and a victim’ resistance response during the crime. In addition to comparatively low reporting rates, sexual victimization is also associated with more negative health outcomes. A crucial concern is that police reporting is linked to exacerbated levels of distress. This study sought to explore two areas surrounding crime, police reporting, and distress. In manuscript one, analyses investigated the role of the three previously mentioned crime-related predictors and whether their interaction demonstrated an impact a victim’s decision to report. In manuscript two, the role of police reporting on the relationship between crime and victim distress was examined and then compared across victim resistance responses.These aims were achieved through a secondary analysis of unweighted 2015-2019 National Crime Victimization Survey data. Manuscript one used multiple logistic regressions with interaction terms to explore the synergistic moderating relationships of crime, relationship to the perpetrator and victim resistance response across all violent crimes (n=9,763) and exclusively within sexual crimes (n=827). Manuscript two utilized mediation path analyses to examine if police reporting mediated the relationship between the type of violent (n=10,128) or sexual (n=856) crime experienced and victim distress. Multiple group path analysis was used to determine if these pathways varied by victim resistance response.Results of manuscript one found that the predictor’s main effects were all significantly associated with differential police reporting. Across all violent crimes, a moderating effect of victim resistance response on the type of crime’s impact on police reporting was found. Victim 'fight' responses increased the likelihood of reporting compared to both ‘flight’ and ‘freeze’ responses. However, among victims of sexual crime, resistance response did not impact odds of reporting. The mediation path analysis conducted in manuscript two found that experiencing sexual crime compared to non-sexual crimes, both decreased the likelihood of police reporting and increased victim distress. Overall, police reporting was associated with higher distress and significantly mediated the relationship between the type of violent crime and levels of distress. Victim resistance response moderated the direct effect of type of violent crime on police reporting. In the second analysis, sexual assault victimization, compared to rape and attempted rape, decreased reporting to police. Type of crime and police reporting remained associated with higher distress. The relationship between type of sexual crime and distress was mediated by police reporting. No moderation effects were found.This dissertation has important implications for research and practice. Results indicate that while sexual crime reporting was not influenced by victim resistance response, victim response is an instrumental determinant for non-sexual crime. This contribution is vital in explaining variance in violent crime reporting and opens opportunities for further application in the field. In addition, results support growing evidence that police reporting increases victim distress, but not just in sexual crime. Improving victim interactions with police and strategies for distress reduction are critical needs in public health. The findings present opportunities for intervention in order to do so. However, further research is needed to determine what victims identify as contributors to their decision to report crime to police, and what about the police reporting process contributes to or mitigates distress.
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