Police Decisions in a Rape Scenario: The Effect of Trauma Response, Forensic Evidence, Stranger-Perpetrators, and Rape Mythology.

This study examined the direct effect of "classic rape" characteristics, and how they were moderated by rape myth endorsement, on the likelihood of arrest, perceived district attorney charge acceptance, and perceived suspect conviction using a formal rape disclosure among a sample of 468 police participants from a sizeable municipal law enforcement agency in one of the fifth largest and most diverse U.S. cities. A randomly assigned, between-subjects factorial vignette design was employed. Manipulations included stereotypical trauma response, forensic medical exam, and perpetrator type. Path modeling revealed statistically significant relations between stereotypical trauma response, forensic medical exam, perpetrator type, and the three outcome variables. Rape myth endorsement moderated the effect of manipulations on the dependent variables. Implications for research and policy are discussed.

Examining the Relationship Between Victimization, Psychopathy, and the Acceptance of Rape Myths.

Rape myths are attitudes that implicitly and explicitly blame victims for their own sexual victimization. Greater adherence to rape myths is linked to several negative outcomes, including the neutralization of gender-based violence and the perpetration of sexual violence. Few studies have considered how previous life experiences and individual-level traits influence the development and greater adherence to rape myths. The current study examines how traits associated with the three-factor model of psychopathy (i.e., egocentric, callous, and antisocial dimensions) and adherence to traditional gender roles mediate the relationship between prior childhood/adolescent victimization and the acceptance of rape myths in a sample of college men and women (N = 789). Path modeling indicates that experiences of psychological victimization (before age 16) increased egocentric psychopathic traits, which then increased the acceptance of rape myths in men. In women, however, sexual victimization (before age 16) increased the acceptance of traditional gender roles, which then influenced the acceptance of rape myths. Additionally, the egocentric facet of psychopathy exerted indirect effects on the acceptance of rape myths through traditional views on gender roles in both men and women. These findings highlight the need to continue to examine egocentric personality traits in relation to the development of rape myths in adolescent and young adult populations. Directions for collegiate programming are discussed.

The influence of youth and parent reports of parental knowledge and monitoring and reporting discrepancy on high risk youth offending.

INTRODUCTION: Positive parenting practices are known to be related to lower levels of youth offending. Questions remain as to the overlap between youth and parent perceptions of parenting practices, and the relationship of perception discrepancies with youth offending. This study examines the concordance of parenting behaviors reports, the relationship between parent and youth perceptions of parenting measures with youth offending, and whether discordant youth and parent reports are related to heterogeneity in youth offending. METHODS: Survey data from 818 high risk U.S. youth averaging 16 years old who participated in the Pathways to Desistance study and his or her parent form the basis of this analysis. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Results demonstrate youth and parent reports of parental knowledge and parental monitoring are correlated, yet independent predictors of youth offending variety scores. Youth and parent reports about parenting measures demonstrate youth offending is highest when youth perceive parents as uninvolved, and lowest when youth estimates of parental knowledge and monitoring are higher than parent estimates. Parenting matters for high-risk youth, especially in reducing the likelihood of property offending. Using multiple perspectives to assess parenting practices is important in studying these dyadic relationships.

Factors Influencing Law Enforcement Responses to Child to Parent Violence.

A domestic violence incident perpetrated by a child toward his or her parent presents a challenging dynamic for law enforcement officers responding to these calls for service. To date, law enforcement responses to child to parent violence (CPV) have only been studied dichotomously (i.e., decision to arrest), and as a result, the associated complexities are not well understood. Here, we add to the understanding of individual, situational, and contextual factors that influence law enforcement response to CPV by examining 1,113 calls for service in a Midwestern state. In assessing the relative influence of these factors on responses using a multinomial logistic regression with cluster robust standard errors, we find evidence that the gendered nature of CPV victim-offender dyads and the presence of victim injury influences police decision to arrest in lieu of an informal, de-escalation only response. We also find officers are less likely to refer youth to social welfare agencies or arrest a youth perpetrator when CPV occurs in neighborhoods with a high level of family disruption. In these instances, the officer works to deescalate the situation, but is significantly less likely to take further action or formally refer the family to social resources. Researchers must work to better understand CPV prevention and improve system responses and resources for affected families.

Predicting Recidivism Among Defendants in an Expedited Domestic Violence Court.

Specialized domestic violence courts are presumed to be more effective than general case processing in understanding and addressing the unique issues associated with this crime type, which should lead to reduced recidivism among offenders. Research, however, is less clear about whether and how domestic violence courts reduce recidivism. This study analyzes data from a misdemeanor, expedited domestic violence court in southeast Texas to assess whether defendant characteristics and court processing characteristics influence recidivism among offenders processed through the specialty docket. Results indicate that case processing time was a significant predictor of rearrest for domestic violence. Offenders who had a prior domestic violence arrest were twice as likely to have a subsequent domestic violence arrest. Offenders who received a jail sentence were significantly more likely to have a subsequent domestic violence arrest. Policy implications and future research needs are also discussed.

The Rural/Urban Divide: Examining Different Types of Assault Through a Social Disorganization Lens.

Most studies of social disorganization theory focus on urban communities. In addition, these studies largely ignore more intimate crimes, such as intimate partner violence. Yet, results from extant studies are often generalized to explain all types of crime in all types of communities, thus potentially ignoring the dynamics surrounding intimate crimes and rurality. The current study expands on previous research in two ways. First, this study examines whether characteristics of social disorganization can predict assault across various victim-offender relationships. Second, this study applies social disorganization predictors to both metropolitan (or urban) and nonmetropolitan (or rural) counties. The sample consisted of 690 counties located across 13 different states. Results from the Poisson regression models indicate higher levels of ethnic heterogeneity and concentrated disadvantage were associated with increased rates of assault across various victim-offender relationships. Furthermore, the measures of social disorganization functioned in the expected direction in both metropolitan and nonmetropolitan counties. These results highlight the importance of controlling for community structures when examining rates of violence, including intimate partner violence. Programs and policies designed to reduce intimate partner violence should include neighborhood components as these affect rates of violence within a community.

Life Course and Intergenerational Continuity of Intimate Partner Aggression and Physical Injury: A 20-Year Study.

The objective of this study is to examine continuity of intimate partner aggression (IPA), which is defined as repeated annual involvement in IPA, across respondents' life course and into the next generation, where it may emerge among adult children. A national, longitudinal, and multigenerational sample of 1,401 individuals and their adult children is analyzed. Annual data on IPA severity and physical injury were collected by the National Youth Survey Family Study across a 20-year period from 1984 to 2004. Three hypotheses and biological sex differences are tested and effect sizes are estimated. First, findings reveal evidence for life course continuity (IPA is a strong predictor of subsequent IPA), but the overall trend decreases over time. Second, intergenerational continuity is documented (parents' IPA predicts adult children's IPA), but the effect is stronger for female than for male adult children. Third, results from combined and separate, more restrictive, measures of victimization and perpetration are nearly identical except in the intergenerational analyses. Fourth, evidence for continuity is not found when assessing physical injury alone. Together, these findings imply that some but not all forms of IPA are common, continuous, and intergenerational. Life course continuity appears stronger than intergenerational continuity.

Capturing Crime: The Qualitative Analysis of Individual Cases for Advancing Criminological Knowledge.

The qualitative analysis of individual cases has a prominent place in the development of criminological theory, yet progression in the scientific study of crime has largely been viewed as a distinctly quantitative endeavor. In the process, much of the theoretical depth and precision supplied by earlier methods of criminological knowledge production have been sacrificed. The current work argues for a return to our criminological roots by supplementing quantitative analyses with the qualitative inspection of individual cases. We provide a specific example of a literature (i.e., criminal specialization/versatility) that has become increasingly quantitative and could benefit from the use of the proposed approach. We conclude by offering additional areas of research that might be advanced by our framework presented here.

Examining the Correlates of Women's Use of Sexual Coercion: Proposing an Explanatory Model.

Research in the last few years has begun to examine the prevalence of female sexual offending as well as attempting to understand the predictors of sexually coercive behavior among women. Although women engage in sexual coercion significantly less often than men, more research on female sexual coercion is warranted. The current study provides an exploratory examination of the relationship between several attitudinal, experiential, and situational factors, and the use of various sexual coercion tactics among a sample of 582 sexually active, female undergraduate students, as well as proposing an explanatory model of female sexual coercion. Results indicate that several variables that are significant predictors of sexual aggression for men are also predictive for women. However, these variables seem to work differently in predicting sexually coercive behavior for women. Implications for theory and further study are discussed.

The Influence of Direct and Indirect Juvenile Victimization Experiences on Adult Victimization and Fear of Crime.

Research has identified that juvenile victimization can play a detrimental role for individuals later in life. While this literature has focused on direct and indirect forms of victimization at different stages of life, the influence of juvenile victimization on fear of crime and violent victimization as an adult has been limited. To expand this body of literature, the present research examines the effects of direct (sexual victimization) and indirect (witnessing parental intimate partner violence) juvenile victimization on fear of crime as well as the prevalence of victimization as an adult. Using telephone survey data collected from randomly selected Texas adults, this study demonstrates that both juvenile sexual victimization and indirect victimization increase the likelihood of adult victimization, whereas juvenile sexual victimization increases the likelihood of adult sexual victimization. In contrast, fear of crime as an adult was not significantly influenced by either juvenile sexual victimization or indirect victimization. A discussion of how these findings relate to previous research, limitations, and implications are also provided.

Understanding men's perceptions of risks and rewards in a date rape scenario.

Existing research on date rape has identified important correlations between rape-supportive attitudes and sexual aggression. What remains unclear is the mechanism by which these attitudes are translated into sexually aggressive behavior. This study borrows from a rational choice framework to explore the relationship between attitudes, perceptions of the risks and rewards of engaging in date rape, and self-reported hypothetical aggression in a date rape scenario. Results suggest that rape-supportive attitudes are related to particular patterns of identified risks and rewards of date rape as well as to the self-reported likelihood of engaging in date rape behavior. This supports a perspective that certain attitude structures may alter the risks and rewards that potential offenders consider in deciding whether or not to engage in sexual aggression. Implications for future research and prevention programs are discussed.