NCJ Number
196619
Journal
Criminology Volume: 40 Issue: 3 Dated: August 2002 Pages: 617-648
Date Published
August 2002
Length
32 pages
Annotation
Factors that encourage and inhibit victims of domestic abuse from calling the police are examined in this article.
Abstract
In this journal article, the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) is employed in order to examine factors contributing to the reporting of and failure to report domestic violence to the police. Starting with the commonly held notion that victims of domestic violence, particularly women, are reluctant to call the police, this article presents the incentives and costs associated with making the decision to call the police concerning domestic violence. Focusing on both the roles of the victim-offender relationship and on the role of gender in making the decision to report domestic abuse to the police, the authors discuss victims’ desires for self-protection, fears of reprisal, undermining the severity of the offense, concerns for privacy, desires to protect the offender, and belief in police leniency. The data used in this study were from incident files of the NCVS, from 1992 to 1998. Analyses of three independent variables, the relationship between the victim and the offender, the gender of the victim, and the gender of the offender, resulted in a series of complement logits in order to test a variety of hypotheses. Results indicate that the issue of victims’ response to assaults is a complex matter. While victims of domestic violence seem less inclined to call the police than are victims of other types of violence because of fear of reprisal, privacy concerns, and desire to protect the offender, domestic violence victims often perceive the assaults as criminal and are not as reluctant to report domestic violence as has been commonly asserted. Tables, references, appendix