“Police Wouldn’t Give You No Help”

Abstract

Sexual assault remains one of the most underreported violent crimes. When victims report, they often are dissatisfied with the police response. The factors influencing one’s decision to invoke the law have been widely examined. However, less research examines (a) how the victim’s criminality affects this decision and (b) women offenders’ characterization of their reporting decisions. We use mixed methods to explore the factors related to an offender’s decision to report sexual victimization to police and consider their descriptions of police response when they do report the crime. Our findings provide insight into the gendered relations between offenders and police.

Keywords

victimization reporting sexual assault women offenders satisfaction with police

Introduction

Sexual assault is considered one of the most serious and traumatic personal crimes, yet, by all scientific accounts, it remains the crime that is least likely to be reported to law enforcement. Although estimates vary depending upon age and composition of the sample, national surveys find that between 16-20% of sexual assault victims report their experiences to the police (Kilpatrick, Edmunds, & Seymour, 1992; Tjaden & Thoennes, 2006). Estimates from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) suggest that approximately one third of rapes and sexual assaults are reported (Hart & Rennison, 2003).¹ In predicting whether a sexual assault will be reported to the police, scholars consistently find that the most important factor is the seriousness of the incident (e.g., Chen & Ullman, 2010; Felson & Paré, 2005; Lizotte, 1985; Pino & Meier, 1999). However, one potentially important factor in the reporting decision has received relatively less attention—the victim’s involvement in illegal activity.

Why might involvement in illegal activity affect the probability of reporting criminal victimization to the police? Research with male street offenders indicates that they are much less likely than nonoffenders to turn to police when they have been victimized because they fear they may be arrested, they wish to exact “street justice,” or they have prior negative experiences with law enforcement (Jacobs, 2000; Rosenfeld, Jacobs, & Wright, 2003; Topalli, Wright, & Fornango, 2002). According to Black (1983), the reluctance to rely on formal mechanisms of social control in the face of victimization may lead offenders to use violent tactics to resolve conflicts or to rectify transgressions themselves (Rosenfeld et al., 2003). Yet, there is also evidence that an offender’s reluctance to report criminal victimization, and their corresponding use of self-help, is not universal (see Berg, Slocum, & Loeber, 2013; Jacobs, 2000; Jacques & Wright, 2008; Rosenfeld et al., 2003). Instead, the relationship between offending and reports to police may depend on situational factors, the nature of the victim’s offending, or the type of victimization experienced. Indeed, Rosenfeld and colleagues (2003) noted that the male drug dealers in their sample, though they typically did not contact police, would call them in extreme circumstances such as when they or a member of their family were in imminent danger or in cases where the perpetrator had done something truly heinous. Thus, for some offenders, under some circumstances, reporting may be a viable and perhaps even desirable option. This may be especially likely for female offenders, who may not be held to the same subcultural standards or masculine norms that often inhibit reporting among their male counterparts.

To date, much of the research on offender reporting has focused on male offenders. Here, we investigate whether the reluctance to seek the help of law enforcement that has been observed among male offenders also applies to female offenders who experience a specific type of victimization—sexual assault. Prior research provides some evidence that female offenders, particularly those involved in sex work, often fear that police will not believe them if they report a sexual assault (Church, Henderson, Barnard, & Hart, 2001; Maher, 1997; Miller & Schwartz, 1995; Nixon, Tutty, Downe, Gorkoff, & Ursel, 2002) but under certain circumstances will turn to the police for help (Miller, 1993). But, not all female offenders who experience sexual assault are prostitutes and not all sexual assaults of female offenders occur during the course of sex work. Thus, it is important to examine sexual victimization and reporting behaviors among women engaged in other types of crime to determine whether (and when) they seek legal redress.

To do so, we use a diverse sample of female offenders interviewed in Minneapolis and Baltimore as part of the Women’s Experiences of Violence (WEV) project. Our analyses are based on surveys of 102 women offenders and their narrative accounts of 148 sexual assaults. These data allow us to explore the extent of reporting in this sample, as well as the victim characteristics and situational factors associated with this decision. We are also able to make comparisons between reporting behaviors among the criminally involved women in our sample and prior related work with nonoffending women. Our focus is on understanding how women’s involvement in deviant and criminal lifestyles might affect their decisions to report sexual assaults. That is, given that we are studying a population that is expected to be particularly unlikely to report (offenders) and a crime that is highly underreported (sexual assault), why might some women seek out the assistance of formal law? We also investigate how women who do report sexual assault describe their interactions with the police.

We believe this research is important for several reasons. First, we contribute to a greater understanding of how gender structures reliance on formal and informal mechanisms of social control. And we provide a more nuanced description of the complex and gendered relations between offenders and law enforcement. From a policy perspective, our work offers insight into how victimization reporting might be promoted among those who are particularly vulnerable to sexual assault. The women in our sample describe assaults that are quite serious, and police reporting may be the gateway that provides access to much-needed victim services (Gartner & Macmillan, 1995; Skogan, 1984). Reporting sexual assault to police also has broader social benefits; if reporting leads to an arrest, it may prevent the attacker from victimizing others.

“Real Rapes” and “Real Victims”

Social paradigms and myths about what constitutes a “real rape” (Estrich, 1987) are deeply embedded within U.S. culture. As such, sexual assaults that involve certain aggravating factors may be more likely viewed as “true crimes” by the victims and by the criminal justice system. Three characteristics have consistently been found to increase the likelihood of sexual assault reporting: the use of a weapon, especially a firearm; multiple offenders; and victim injury beyond the sexual assault itself (e.g., Bachman, 1998; Baumer, Felson, & Messner, 2003; Du Mont, Miller, & Myhr, 2003; Hart & Rennison, 2003; Lizotte, 1985; Pino & Meier, 1999).²

The stereotypical rape scenario also includes notions of who may be convincingly labeled a “real victim” and under what circumstances. The criteria to be considered a “real victim” are quite narrow; women who are perceived to violate gender norms, such as lesbian women, women who go out to nightclubs, and women who drink heavily or use drugs may be essentially disqualified from “real victim” status (Du Mont et al., 2003, p. 469; see also Hatty, 1989). These cultural stereotypes of a “real victim” may affect rape victims’ experiences in the criminal justice system (Spohn, Beichner, & Davis-Frenzel, 2001). Not surprisingly, when victims cannot reconcile their own experience with pervasive cultural typifications of sexual assault, they may not consider themselves real victims (Stewart, Dobbin, & Gatowski, 1996). Instead, they may feel ashamed and reluctant to disclose their experiences to anyone, particularly in situations in which they were under the influence of alcohol or drugs or engaged in other provocative or dangerous behaviors (Clay-Warner & Burt, 2005; Fisher, Daigle, Cullen, & Turner, 2003; Weiss, 2009). Street-level sex workers, who may be viewed (and view themselves) as having little legal recourse when they are raped, or even as being “unrapeable” (Miller & Schwartz, 1995), may be particularly unlikely to report sexual assault to police.

In sum, whether a woman defines her experience as sexual assault and herself as a victim is related to her decision to report. While concerns about culpability due to drinking or drug use may inhibit women from reporting sexual assaults, women offenders may have additional reasons for shunning police involvement. The broader literature on crime reporting suggests that criminal offending inhibits reporting for many reasons, including fear of legal recourse.

Offenders on Reporting

Studies on the reporting experiences of offenders primarily have focused on male offenders. Such research suggests that, despite being at higher risk of victimization than the general population, offenders are less willing to report victimization to police. In fact, offenders may be selected as victims precisely because of the assumption that they will not notify the police. Although access to law enforcement is not formally denied to those who break the law (Jacques & Wright, 2008), offenders may not report because they fear they will be implicated in a crime or, worse, be labeled a “snitch” (Jacobs, 2000; Jacobs & Wright, 2006; Rosenfeld et al., 2003; Topalli et al., 2002). This fear is not without merit, as there may be retaliation for talking to or associating with the police.

Victimization may also be seen by offenders as an inevitable cost of (street) business and as something to be dealt with by other means. Rather than seek assistance from law enforcement, the entrenchment of various subcultural codes of conduct (i.e., the “street code”) means that offenders, especially male offenders, are expected to handle grievances, even serious victimizations, on their own. They may feel as though they have less legal recourse upon victimization and may instead take matters into their own hands through retaliatory attacks or “street justice” (e.g., Mullins, Wright, & Jacobs, 2004; Rosenfeld et al., 2003). In fact, Black (1983) argued that the use of “self help” is not only more likely among those who have less access to the law but also that such access is directly related to the social statuses of, and the relationships between, those involved in a grievance. Law is least likely to be invoked among those with low social status, including offenders, and among those who have a grievance against an intimate.

Finally, men and women who engage in criminal behavior are also more likely to have had prior contact with the police as both victims of crime (Lauritsen, Sampson, & Laub, 1991; Maxfield, 1988) and suspects (Hindelang, Hirschi, & Weis, 1981). According to Tyler (1990), these interactions communicate to the offender messages about their social standing and may affect reporting by shaping their opinions of the legitimacy of police (Tyler & Fagan, 2008). If individuals perceive that the police have failed to follow fair and just procedures during prior interactions, they will be less likely to view the police as legitimate and to cooperate with them. The often antagonistic relationship between offenders and law enforcement makes it especially likely that offenders will perceive that they are the target of unfair and arbitrary treatment by the police (Rosenfeld et al., 2003). In addition to procedural justice, distributive justice—the degree to which police services are fairly and equitably delivered to different groups—also informs perceptions of legitimacy (Tyler, 1990). Thus, victims should be less likely to report if they perceive that the police did not take prior reports of victimization seriously or that they put forth little investigatory effort (Xie, Pogarsky, Lynch, & McDowall, 2006). This may be especially true for offenders, who perceive that they “cannot really be ‘victims’ in the eyes of the criminal justice system” (Topalli et al., 2002, p. 337).

Gender, Street Culture, and Police–Offender Relationships

Black’s (1983) predictions suggest that most criminal offenders who are victimized should be reluctant to involve the police, but they do not explicitly address how gender shapes interactions and outcomes within criminal subcultures. However, to the degree that gender inequality remains a “salient feature of most criminal subcultures” (Jacobs & Miller, 1998, p. 550), we would expect that women offenders’ responses to victimization will differ from men’s. Even in marginal subcultures, women may receive “little support for expressions of masculine violence,” such as physical retaliation (Braithwaite & Daly, 1994, p. 190), and many “are not viewed as real players in the action of the streets” (Miller, 1998, p. 50). Therefore, compared with their male counterparts, female offenders may incur fewer benefits by handling grievances themselves, prompting them to seek outside assistance, perhaps even from the police. This would be consistent with Baumgartner’s (1984) theory of Social Control From Below where a “strategy of appeal exploited by lower-status grievants is to seek the assistance of one or a few specific high-status third parties who might be willing to take action on their behalf” (p. 318). Recognition of their own vulnerability to violence and limited avenues for violent retaliation also engender less adversarial relations between women and law enforcement. Males typically report higher rates of involuntary police contact and force compared with females (Brunson & Miller, 2006) and law enforcement officers treat female suspects differently, exercising greater discretion with them compared with male suspects (Chesney-Lind & Shelden, 1992). For all of these reasons, we suspect that female offenders are more likely to report victimization experiences to police compared with what prior research has shown with male offenders, even in the context of their own criminal involvement.

Nevertheless, it is also possible that the victim–law enforcement relationship hinges on whether women adhere to traditional gender expectations (Visher, 1983). In the case of sex workers, who clearly defy social definitions of “appropriate female sexuality [and] of worthy victims” (Miller & Schwartz, 1995, p. 3), police–citizen relations may be quite strained. This may explain why, despite sex workers’ high rates of victimization, very few of these attacks are ever reported to police (e.g., Church et al., 2001; Maher, 1997; Miller, 1993; Miller & Schwartz, 1995; Nixon et al., 2002).³ Women fear that police will not take their complaints of sexual assault seriously or they will harass them for being on the streets, in some cases even arresting them for prostitution (Banach, 1999). Prior negative experiences with police, either after their own or a friend’s victimization, or during an arrest, also inhibit reporting. In other incidents, women cannot go to the police because their attacker was, in fact, a law enforcement officer (Nixon et al., 2002).

Despite these barriers to reporting, women involved in sex work do occasionally turn to police, particularly to report someone who appears to be targeting street prostitutes (Miller, 1993). The goal in such instances is not necessarily to press charges, but rather to gain police assistance in keeping potentially dangerous men away from the area. At other times, sex workers may even cooperate with police by providing information in exchange for lenient treatment related to their own criminal activity (Sanders, 2004). Thus, the relationship between sex workers and police appears to be tenuous; while not always outright hostile to law enforcement, women involved in sex work do not make it a habit to go to police for help or to report victimization experiences. Yet, in some cases, they do call upon the police to restore some degree of safety to the streets (Miller, 1993).

Ultimately, because much of the research on offender reporting is focused on male drug dealers who are robbed in the course of business or female sex workers, it is unclear whether the same “rules” for nonreporting apply to other offenders, particularly female offenders involved in the types of illegal activities that are more tightly governed by masculine norms, such as drug dealing. It is also unknown whether the offender code of eschewing law enforcement would apply to sexual assault, which is characterized by low reporting rates and a different set of salient factors that act to discourage reporting. Prior work on offender reporting also typically examines generalized views of police and cooperation with law enforcement, rather than questioning whether an offender reported a specific incident to police. These studies may fail to capture nuances regarding how the characteristics of the victimization event are related to reporting. For example, not all sexual assaults experienced by offenders occur during the course of illegal activity and it is possible that reporting is more likely when the victimization is not directly related to their offending behavior. Offenders too may report to police if confronted with particularly serious crimes and injuries.

Research Questions

In this study, we assess how women’s involvement in criminal offending, their perceptions of the police more generally, and the characteristics of their sexual assaults are related to reporting to law enforcement. In answering this question, we consider the manner in which women’s decisions to seek law enforcement assistance are shaped by their demographic characteristics and criminal histories, recent criminal behavior and involvement with the criminal justice system, and any illegal activity they were engaged in at the time of the attack. Given that women offenders often have previous experiences with police, we also question what happens when they do seek help. Are they taken seriously? Do they get “justice” (i.e., is their attacker arrested)? Are they satisfied with their treatment?

Data and Method

Data Collection Instrument and Sample Selection

The research described here is part of a multisite study of incarcerated women, called Women’s Experiences of Violence (WEV). This study examines the personal, situational, and community-level factors that are associated with women’s experiences of violence, both as offenders and as victims. For the current study, we use data collected from the two sites that were located within the United States—Baltimore, MD, and Minneapolis, MN.⁴

At both sites, interviews were conducted in rooms away from correctional staff. The interview schedule was programmed onto laptop computers and used a life events calendar to collect information on women’s incarceration and treatment experiences, living arrangements, routine and criminal activities, and intimate relationships in the 36 months before their current incarceration. Demographic and criminal justice history information, including the number of lifetime arrests and jail and prison terms, was also collected. As part of the interview, women were asked a series of screening questions to identify whether they had experienced either attempted or completed sexual assaults during the 3 years prior to the interview. Those women who had were asked to provide a narrative account of each incident and to answer a series of follow-up survey questions.⁵

A total of 557 women were interviewed across the two sites. More than half of the women in our sample (60%) were Black and they ranged from 18-60 years of age (M = 35). Most of the women had prior criminal justice involvement: 40% had served at least one term in a state or federal prison and more than 80% had been in jail prior to their current incarceration. Three quarters of the women in the full sample used illegal drugs in the 36 months prior to their incarceration. Not surprisingly, given their drug use histories, 41% of the women were incarcerated at the time of their interview (either convicted of or awaiting trial for) on a drug charge. In all, 8% of the sample were charged with or convicted of prostitution, 14% were incarcerated on a technical violation (of probation or parole), and 18% reported they were in jail on other or multiple charges.

Of the 351 women in the Baltimore sample, 60 (17%) indicated that they had been sexually assaulted during the prior 3 years as had 42 (20%) of the 206 women from Minneapolis.⁶ The majority of the women who recalled a sexual assault experienced only one such victimization (Baltimore: 60%, n = 36; Minneapolis: 76%, n = 32); however, some recalled multiple sexual attacks. For example, in Minneapolis, 8 women were sexually assaulted twice and 2 women were victimized 4 times in the 3-year time span. Repeat victimizations were slightly more prevalent in Baltimore: 18 women were victimized twice, 5 reported 3 assaults, and 1 woman was the victim of 5 sexual assaults. In total, 102 women reported being the victim of 148 sexual assaults.

Measures

We use the survey data to explore how sexual assaults that were reported to the police differ from those that were not in terms of victim and incident characteristics. In the quantitative analyses, our dependent variable is a dichotomous variable indicating whether the sexual assault was reported to the police either directly by the victim or by a third party on the victim’s behalf. Out of 148 incidents, 42 (28%) were known to police. In most of these reported incidents (n = 32), the victim notified the police herself. The remainder (n = 10) were reported by a third party or involved someone flagging down or happening upon the police on the street. At first glance, reporting rates within this sample of offenders appear to be similar to rates within the general population (Baumer et al., 2003; Rennison, 2002), though the nature of the attacks experienced by offenders may be very different.

Based on previous literature, we examine three sets of factors that may affect reporting: characteristics of the victim, life circumstances and involvement in criminal behavior during the month in which the attack occurred, and the nature of the victimization event. There were no differences between Baltimore and Minneapolis in the likelihood of reporting, so we combine the data from the two sites in all analyses.

Victim demographic and background characteristics

Some research has found that victim characteristics may be related to sexual assault reporting (e.g., Felson & Paré, 2005). We examine four factors that capture these characteristics including the age of the victim in years at the time of the interview, race (White, Black, Other), and education (less than high school, high school only, and at least some college). In addition, to assess respondents’ cumulative offending experiences, we include a categorical indicator of the number of times they had been arrested over their lifetime (1-3, 4-10, 11-25, more than 25).

Recent criminal behavior and involvement with the criminal justice system

While all of the women in our sample had engaged in offending or illicit behavior during the 3-year reference period, the extent and nature of their involvement in illegal activity varied over time. Willingness to seek assistance from the law following a sexual assault may vary based on the victim’s behavior and criminal justice experiences during the period proximal to the attack rather than on global levels of past offending. To assess this in the quantitative analyses, we include a series of dichotomous variables that capture the victim’s self-reported criminal behavior during the month of the attack. These include indicators of whether the respondent reported dealing drugs, engaging in sex work, or committing property crime at least once during the month in which the sexual assault occurred. We also measure regular drug use with two variables that capture whether the victim reported she had used cocaine or heroin at least once a week during the month of the attack.⁷ Finally, we measure involvement with the criminal justice system with two variables that indicate whether the assault occurred during a month in which the respondent had been arrested or was on probation or parole.

Descriptive statistics in Table 1 highlight the fact that the women in our sample were engaged in a wide range of illegal activities during the month of their victimization. For example, although half of the sexual assaults occurred in months during which the victim had engaged in sex work, drug dealing and property crime were also quite prevalent (29% and 20%, respectively). Almost 15% of attacks occurred in months in which the victim had been arrested and half occurred in months in which the respondent was under the supervision of the criminal justice system.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics and Bivariate Comparison of Reported and Unreported Assaults.

	%/M
	All incidents (N = 148)	Police notification (n = 42)	No police notification (n = 106)
Demographic variables and criminal history of assault victim
Site
Baltimore	62.16	59.52	63.21
Minneapolis	37.84	40.48	36.79
M age (in years)	32.59	33.00	32.43
Race
Black	57.43	50.00	60.38
White	33.11	40.48	30.19
Other	9.46	9.52	9.43
Education
Less than high school	45.95	50.00	44.34
High school only	31.76	26.19	33.96
At least some college	22.30	23.81	21.70
Number of lifetime arrests
1-3	11.49	11.90	11.31
4-10	41.89	40.48	42.45
11-25	29.73	33.33	28.30
More than 25	16.89	14.29	17.92
Criminal behavior and criminal justice system involvement in month of assault
Under supervision of criminal justice system	50.00	47.62	50.94
Arrested	14.19	19.05	12.26
Dealing drugs	29.05	28.57	29.25
Engaging in prostitution	53.38	45.24	56.60
Committing property crime	20.27	19.05	20.75
Regular heroin use in the month of incident (at least once a week)	40.54	26.19	46.23^†
Regular cocaine use in the month of incident (at least once a week)	62.16	52.38	66.04
Characteristics of assault
Involved drugs (dealing or exchange)	10.14	4.76^a	12.26
Involved prostitution	35.14	33.33	35.85
Respondent was using drugs	50.68	30.95	58.49*
Respondent was drinking	15.54	7.14	18.87^†
Opponent was drinking or using drugs	30.61	21.95	33.96
Multiple opponents	8.11	14.29	5.66^†
Opponent’s relationship to victim
Current partner	27.03	16.67	31.13
Known, nonpartner or ex-partner	20.95	19.05	21.70
Stranger	52.03	64.29	47.17
Occurred in someone’s home	45.27	35.71	49.06
Involved force	57.43	83.33	47.17**
Injured	41.89	76.19	28.30**
Received medical attention	22.60	60.98	7.62**
Involved a weapon	41.22	57.14	34.91*
Type of assault
Attempted	9.59	16.67	6.73
Forced contact and other sexual assault	20.55	23.81	19.23
Penetration	69.86	59.52	74.04

Note. Difference between reported and unreported incidents is significant: †p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01.

Cell size smaller than 5 because only 2 of the 15 incidents that involved drugs were reported to the police.

Characteristics of the victimization event

A number of survey questions capture the victim’s behavior at the time of the assault. Two variables measure whether the respondent was engaged in illegal activity at the time of the incident. Victimizations are coded as involving drugs if the respondent reported she was dealing drugs or involved in a drug exchange at the time of the incident. A similar measure was constructed for sex work which was more prevalent in our sample: 10% of sexual assaults involved drug dealing compared with 35% involving sex work. We also include two variables to assess whether the respondent was drinking or using drugs at the time of the incident. Just over half of the incidents occurred when the respondent was using drugs, but alcohol use was much less prevalent (16%). The perpetrator’s substance use is measured with one dichotomous variable indicating whether the respondent believed the attacker(s) had been drinking or using drugs at the time of the attack.

Previous research has found that measures capturing the seriousness of the attack are among the most robust predictors of reporting; therefore, we include dichotomous variables to capture whether the attack involved a weapon, had multiple perpetrators, or involved force. We also include indicators of whether the respondent was injured beyond the sexual assault or received medical attention. Descriptive statistics confirm that the sexual assaults reported by our sample were quite serious: 41% involved a weapon and in 42% of the incidents the respondent was injured, with 23% resulting in medical attention. While this may be a function of the women in our sample reporting only more serious offenses to interviewers, it is also the case that they frequently spent time in risky environments and associated with other offenders. Due to multicollinearity, in the multivariate analysis we combined the variables on force, injury and medical attention to create one ordinal measure capturing the overall seriousness of the incident. Each incident was categorized as involving either no force; force but no injury; injury, but no medical attention; or injury requiring medical attention.

We included in our analyses additional characteristics of the event that have been related to reporting in some studies. These include the type of assault (attempted, forced sexual contact, or penetration), the perpetrator’s relationship to the victim (current partner, known nonpartner or ex-partner, or stranger), and the location of the incident (in someone’s home or elsewhere).

Analytic Strategy

With the assault as the level of analysis, we begin by using the quantitative data to explore the correlates of sexual assault reporting. We examine how those sexual assaults that were reported differ from those that were not by computing independent-sample t tests (two-tailed) and chi-square tests of independence. We then estimate a series of multivariate logistic regression models in which we explore the correlates of reporting in a stepwise fashion. We use a stepwise approach because our sample is relatively small and because there is a high level of overlap among variables that capture illicit behavior in the month of the attack and illicit behavior during the attack itself.⁸ Some women reported multiple victimizations; therefore, robust standard errors are estimated because our observations are not independent. Due to our relatively small sample size, we use alpha = .10 but note when effects are significant only when using this less conservative significance level.

Next, to assist us in interpreting the multivariate results, we analyze the 148 narratives which provide additional details of the attacks women experienced. The narratives gave the women an opportunity to describe their experiences in their own voices and thus allow us to understand what factors were most salient in their decisions to report (or not) to police. The first author inductively coded each sexual assault narrative according to the situational context of the incident (e.g., weapon used, prostitution or drug related) and references to law enforcement. We referenced the survey data (e.g., number of perpetrators, medical attention received) related to each incident during analysis of the narratives to provide additional detail. The inductive codes and the survey data were used to identify themes related to the factors that promoted or dissuaded reporting to police.⁹

Results

Table 1 presents personal, recent offending and incident characteristics separately for reported and nonreported incidents as well as the results of the bivariate analyses. It is important to reiterate that the sexual assaults that were recalled by our sample look different from those reported by population or college-women samples. As shown in Table 1, the majority of the attacks were perpetrated by strangers, more than half involved force, and nearly three quarters involved penetration. Consequently, we see higher than expected reporting rates considering that we have a sample of offending women; 28% of the assaults were reported to police.

Personal characteristics such as race, age, and lifetime criminal history were not significantly related to women’s decisions to notify police. Criminal offending (i.e., dealing drugs, engaging in sex work, or involvement in property crimes) during the month of the sexual assault was not significantly related to law enforcement involvement nor was criminal justice system involvement (i.e., probation or parole, being arrested) during the month of the incident. The regular use of heroin during the incident month, but not other serious drugs like cocaine, was marginally associated with a lower likelihood of police notification. In contrast, incident characteristics, particularly the nature and severity of the attack, were important correlates of police notification. Consistent with prior research, we found that those incidents involving force, weapons, and physical injuries requiring medical attention were more likely to be reported. The presence of multiple offenders was also related to a marginally increased likelihood of law enforcement involvement. The perpetrator’s drug or alcohol use before the incident was not related to reporting decisions, but those incidents in which women used drugs or were drinking prior to the incident were less likely to involve law enforcement, although this effect is only marginally significant for drinking. Reporting was not influenced by whether the attack occurred within the context of sex work. Incidents that involved drug dealing or drug exchanges were also no less likely to be reported, but this result must be interpreted with caution due to small cell sizes; of the 15 incidents that involved drug exchanges, only 2 were reported to the police and both of these were reported by third parties.

The results of stepwise multivariate regression analyses are presented in Table 2. For the most part, these confirm the bivariate findings. Age, race, education, and criminal history do not distinguish reported from unreported sexual assaults in our sample (see Model 1). Local life circumstances and offending behavior during the month of the attack are also unrelated to reporting with one exception: Incidents in which the victim used heroin regularly during the month of the attack are marginally less likely to be reported (see Model 2).¹⁰ Several incident-level characteristics are related to reporting (Model 3). Specifically, reporting is less likely when the victim was using drugs at the time of the attack and marginally less likely when the incident involved drug dealing or exchanges. Controlling for other incident characteristics, we find that attempted attacks and those involving forced contact or other sexual behaviors are more likely to be reported than incidents involving penetration.¹¹ Finally, the police are more likely to be notified when the victim required medical attention as compared with when no force was used; attacks that involved force without injury or injury without medical attention are no more likely to be reported than those without force.¹²

Table 2.

Logistic Regression of Reporting on Victim, Monthly, and Incident Characteristics.

	Model 1—Victim		Model 2—Monthly		Model 3—Incident
	Coefficient	Robust SE	Coefficient	Robust SE	Coefficient	Robust SE
Intercept	−0.700	1.040	−0.460	0.345	−2.288	1.068*
Demographic variables and criminal history of assault victim
Baltimore	−0.037	0.438
Age (in years)	0.004	0.026
Race (reference = white)
Black	−0.698	0.437
Other	−0.366	0.736
Education (reference = high school)
Less than high school	0.514	0.450
At least some college	0.212	0.546
Number of lifetime arrests (reference = 1-3)
4-10	−0.154	0.562
11-25	−0.104	0.566
More than 25	−0.766	0.632
Criminal behavior and criminal justice system involvement in the month of assault
Criminal justice supervision			−0.260	0.380
Arrested			0.522	0.524
Dealing drugs			0.211	0.430
Engaging in prostitution			−0.331	0.420
Committing property crime			−0.143	0.467
Regular heroin use			−0.791	0.464^†
Characteristics of assault
Involved drugs (dealing or exchange)					−1.915	1.113^†
Involved prostitution					−0.452	0.723
Respondent was using drugs					−1.480	0.606*
Respondent was drinking					−1.088	0.973
Opponent was drinking or using drugs					−0.241	0.610
Multiple opponents					0.765	1.117
Opponent’s relationship to victim (reference = stranger)
Current partner					−1.526	1.020
Known, nonpartner or ex-partner					−0.714	0.777
Occurred in someone’s home					1.013	0.799
Involved a weapon					0.705	0.602
Severity (reference = no force)
Involved force					0.928	0.868
Injured, but no medical attention					0.710	0.734
Received medical attention					3.740	0.829***
Type of assault (reference = penetration)
Attempted					1.584	0.703*
Forced contact and other sexual assault					1.897	0.897*
Wald χ²		5.47		7.00		47.89***
Pseudo-R²		.023		.040		.423

†

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

For the most part, these quantitative findings replicate what we know about sexual assault reporting from studies of the general population; the primary factor driving reporting is the seriousness of the event, especially serious injury requiring medical attention. The only offending-related variables related to reporting in our analyses were those that captured substance use. It is important to emphasize that, given the nature of the sample, our findings should not be interpreted as indicating that offending does not matter for sexual assault reporting. Rather, for our sample of crime-involved women, offending behavior during and proximal to the time of the assault does not seem to be related to reporting, particularly when controlling for other incident characteristics. These quantitative analyses, however, cannot reveal the more subtle ways in which offending can influence the decision to report or how these decisions compare with those highlighted in research on male offenders or nonoffending women. For this we turn to the qualitative analyses.

How Do Women Explain Their Reporting Decisions?

Recall that our second aim is to examine how women offenders themselves understand and account for their reporting decisions. We are specifically interested in the role of criminal offending in decisions to report, including whether women suggested that they did not report victimization because of their involvement in crime. At the same time, we also ask why women report sexual assault to police even though they themselves could be implicated in some way if, for example, they were engaged in criminal activity of some sort at the time of the incident.

“I didn’t want to talk about it.”

When asked in the follow-up survey why they did not report to police, the women in our sample most frequently responded that they did not want anyone to know about their attack. In fact, this was the response given in nearly half of the incidents. Many women also noted specifically in their incident narratives that their feelings of shame after the assault made them want to keep these experiences hidden from others. For example, a 37-year-old Black woman had been using drugs with an acquaintance when he attacked her. When asked whether she reported the sexual assault to police, she remarked, “I didn’t talk to nobody ’cause I was ashamed.” After being sexually assaulted and then escaping from her attackers, another woman ran home completely naked. She told us, “I relive it a thousand times and I still can’t believe no one stopped . . . I was too ashamed at the time about what I was doing to go to the police.” Similarly, an American Indian woman said about her sexual assault, “I didn’t tell anyone because I didn’t want them to know what happened.”

Aside from not wanting to discuss their experiences, in many of these cases, women were reluctant to tell anyone because they felt their actions were somewhat to blame for their victimization. A Baltimore woman, who regularly used heroin and cocaine and was involved in sex work, described a sexual attack by a customer wielding a weapon. Despite the extreme violence, she did not report to law enforcement noting that, “It was a prostitution act, so I didn’t want to go to the police, because if I hadn’t been with him in the first place [it would not have occurred].” A woman in Minneapolis who was also sexually assaulted during an encounter with a customer, in fact, prefaced her incident narrative by saying, “It was stupid. I was going to prostitute.” These women both blamed themselves, at least in part, for their assaults; assuming others would blame them as well, they did not seek police assistance.

“Police wouldn’t give you no help.”

While many of the women in our sample offered reasons for not contacting police that are consistent with those given by women in nonoffending samples (e.g., shame, feeling that they did not need help), a handful of women explained their decision not to seek police assistance in other ways. Among these women, a common theme involved their uncertainty that the police would help them or take them seriously, in many cases because of their own involvement in crime. This sentiment was most common among women who engaged in sex work. In fact, a Minneapolis woman remarked about her attacker that he is “known by other girls about stuff he’s done [and] the cops know about it and they are not doing anything about it.” When asked why the police were not attempting to arrest the offender, she replied, “Because it’s all prostitutes that he is doing that to.” Similarly, a woman from Baltimore, when asked why she did not report her sexual assault to police, said that the police “wouldn’t give you no help in that kind of situation.” Other women remarked that calling the police would not “do any good” or that they did not believe “anything would come of it” if they did report.

While women’s activities prior to the sexual assault may have left them concerned that the police would not believe them, a handful of women specifically indicated in their narratives that they did not report because they feared their own arrest. In one of these incidents, a Minneapolis woman was raped at knifepoint on the street. She did not report the attack to police because she was high on drugs at the time and was worried that the police might arrest her as well. A sex worker in Baltimore, after being sexually assaulted by a customer, fought back and cut his genitals with a straight razor she carried in her mouth. When asked by the interviewer why she did not call the police, she replied, “Because of my illegal activity,” presumably including both her involvement in sex work and her use of a weapon. In another case, a woman was panhandling when a man offered to buy her food. When he attempted to forcibly obtain sex from her in return, she refused and was ultimately able to escape. When asked why she did not seek help from the police, she responded that she did not want to get arrested herself.

Self-help, street justice, and snitching

Finally, in a small number of cases, the women told us that they wanted to deal with their attacks on their own, in their own way, rather than involve law enforcement. For example, a 43-year-old white woman from Minneapolis described an incident in which her boyfriend sexually assaulted her. A friend stopped the assault and then offered her some crack cocaine. Instead of reporting the attack to police, she told us that she just began “numbing” herself with the drugs. Similarly, a Black woman from Baltimore recalled how her addiction to heroin affected her response to her sexual assault. While she was soliciting sex, a man approached her and then pulled a gun on her. After forcing her to take off her clothes and give him oral sex, he forced her to run one direction, while he ran in the other. She told us, “Then I went back and got my clothes. You know what the sick part of the drug [heroin] is? I went back and got my clothes and went [back] on the strip.” Her need for money and drugs outweighed any desire to contact police at that time.

While previous studies of offenders emphasize the role of street justice in lieu of invoking formal social control, only two women in our sample suggested that they did not call the police because they sought revenge on their attacker (see Miller, 1993). For example, a 29-year-old Black woman from Baltimore told her boyfriend about the attack. He immediately offered to retaliate: “He was like ‘You wanna go find him? Where he at? What he look like?’” She agreed to the retaliation, though she emphasized (at least to the interviewer) that she did not want him to kill the man. She recalled,

And the guy popped up in our neighborhood several times, and he [boyfriend] felt like if he catch him, he gonna kill him. And I don’t want that. I don’t want him to kill him—he can beat him, but I don’t want him to kill him. If he gonna kill him, let me be there . . .

In contrast, a white woman from Minneapolis described a plan she devised to have her attacker killed by a third party. In fact, she told us that she did not report the victimization because,

I was trying to find someone to pay to either hurt or kill him. The two times I tried to set this up, he was not home. That was the only reason I didn’t report it. I should have reported it. There would have been enough semen or fluids and hair . . .

While research on male offenders emphasizes the importance of handling matters personally, in these narratives we see women invoking the assistance of men, either boyfriends or guns-for-hire, to carry out the retaliatory violence on their behalf. In fact, as in the case from Baltimore, men sometimes even offered to get revenge on the attackers. Women’s dependence on men in these cases is consistent with prior research which has found that sex workers may rely on drug dealers to seek revenge for them (Miller & Schwartz, 1995). However, neither of these cases involved sex work; more importantly, in neither did retaliatory violence actually occur.

The reticence that some women expressed regarding bringing law enforcement into street matters (i.e., snitching) is exemplified in one Baltimore woman’s experience. Looking for a friend, this woman entered a house wherein she encountered a horrific scene: multiple armed offenders, and multiple victims. One of the men pointed a gun at her, asked her whether she had any drugs or money, and then forced her to undress and go upstairs where she was raped by multiple men. When she asked why she had been targeted, she learned that her sexual assault was retaliatory. She explained, “I was raped because someone snitched on him.” Even though she herself was not involved in snitching on the perpetrators to the police, she was nevertheless a target. She did not report her attack personally, but eventually police did become involved after someone outside of the house reported the suspicious activity.

Under What Circumstances Do Women Report Sexual Assault?

Given that our sample is comprised of offending women, we would expect relatively low reporting rates. As noted, however, the rates were generally comparable with previous studies with nonoffending samples; approximately one in four incidents were reported. In general, as in the multivariate findings, the sexual assaults that women reported to police themselves involved physical injuries, often requiring medical attention, weapons, or strangers, or some combination of aggravating factors. For example, a 51-year-old white Baltimore woman recalled a time when she offered to give directions to a lost driver. After she got into the van, she realized that the driver had a gun. She told us, “he took me where he wanted, tied me up and raped me . . . he had me for an hour . . . he told me if I didn’t do what he wanted, he would kill me.” She was unable to escape because he had taken the handles off of the inside of the van doors. Eventually, he threw her out of the van and she went to the police to report the assault.

As this example suggests, another important factor that seemed to promote reporting was the involvement of co-occurring crimes such as kidnapping, robbery, or assault. Addington and Rennison (2008) found that, while such cases were relatively rare in a national sample, rapes that co-occur with other crimes were more likely to be reported to police. The same was true among the women in our sample. Another Baltimore woman called police after being kidnapped and raped by multiple men. She told us,

A black van pulled up. They called me and I walked up to the van to find out what they wanted. I seen the driver and the passenger. And they asked for some information about purchasing drugs. As I proceeded to give them the information, the side doors flew open and somebody grabbed me and pulled me in [the van]. There was two more men in the back. They held me down, pulled off, and took me to an unknown location. They proceeded to rape and beat me. When they was finished, they pushed me out of the van with no clothes and pulled off.

While most of the sexual assaults that women reported involved strangers, there were 12 cases involving acquaintances or intimate partners that women reported to police themselves. Some of these incidents involved other crimes as well. For example, a 30-year-old white woman in Minneapolis described an attack by an acquaintance that extended over a number of days. He held her hostage in an apartment, selling the guns he had stolen from her father’s gun collection. When she was finally able to escape, she called the police. And a Baltimore woman recalled four separate sexual assaults by her boyfriend. She called police after two of the incidents; in both cases where she sought help from law enforcement, her boyfriend physically assaulted her in addition to the sexual assault. She described one of these attacks, telling us “my lip was busted wide open. I had to get stitches.”

Perhaps the most unanticipated cases of reporting to police involved women who were sexually assaulted in the context of sex work, yet nevertheless sought help from police. Such incidents were relatively serious, typically involving weapons and injuries. For example, an American Indian woman in Minneapolis described an attack by a customer with a gun. She managed to escape and called police:

A white man . . . picked me up. He offered me $75 for a quick blowjob and a half and half. He asked me if I knew a dark place where we wouldn’t get caught because he was scared of getting caught. . . . We pulled 2 blocks away down a dark alley behind an abandoned house. He paid me and we started. Halfway through . . . he said, “we are going to flip the script, you are going to do what I say now.” . . . He pulled out a pistol, a pair of handcuffs, and one of those [night] sticks. He made me get undressed all the way, get on the floor, and put my hands behind my back. I lost it, I started kicking and fighting. He only got one hand. He had one hand behind my back. I kicked the side window out, jumped out and ran down the alley, with no clothes. . . . I hit [the] street and called the police. I thought for sure I was dead.

A similar story was told by a Black woman from Baltimore. She and the trick went to an abandoned house. She recalled, “while I was waiting for him to take [the money] out of his pocket, he swung at me and hit me in my face instead. He started choking me.” When she woke up, he forcibly penetrated her anally. She called the police after he left the house.

Not only were particularly vicious assaults reported to the police, but so too were those assaults that were especially humiliating or degrading. A 43-year-old woman from Baltimore was walking down the street when a man asked her if she was working (soliciting). After she agreed to the transaction, they went to a house. She recalled, “When we got there, he pulled a knife on me and raped me. This lasted five hours.” Not only did he hold her hostage for many hours, he took her money, cut her clothes off of her, and, as a final insult, urinated on her before he left the house. She called the police, who took her to the hospital for testing. In one other incident in Baltimore, a 29-year-old Black woman went to police after having been tied to a bed and raped at knifepoint. She had been raped two other times during the previous 36 months; however, this was the only incident she reported, despite the fact that it was also the only incident involving sex work. As she continued to describe her experience, it became clear why she reported this particular attack. She told us,

After he tied me up to the bed, and, ah, it was disgusting. I can’t put that no other way. ’Cuz if you ever seen somebody with lice, crabs, maggots, all up in here [in his genital area] and I had to do what he told me to do in order for me to get out of there . . .

A white woman from Minneapolis told us that she was able to escape from her attacker’s car and immediately went to an area she knew was patrolled by police to flag them down for assistance:

I seen the police comin’ and they slowed down of course ’cause they knew me and I said “don’t stop for me.” I said “go get that fucker” . . . and they took off after him. . . . They probably let him go because they didn’t bring him back, but they did leave me alone and went after him.

Despite the fact that she herself could have been arrested, she sought police assistance. The fact that she was not arrested and instead was treated as a victim by police likely affected her actions after a subsequent attack. After a second rape, she risked arrest—of herself and a friend—as they chased her attacker, again hoping to flag down a police officer or possibly to enact their own revenge:

So I get out of the [perpetrator’s] van and . . . I walk up to the car so scared I couldn’t speak. . . . My friend totally knew something was wrong with me. So he put his car in drive and he took off after the guy in the van. I still hadn’t spoken and he just knew and took off. . . . I was in the car too and couldn’t speak but he took off and we were chasing the van. He followed him down [the street] honking his horn, it’s almost nighttime now. He followed him to downtown still and all this time no police were following us. My friend even has a warrant out for his arrest but he didn’t care, he was gonna beat his ass you know. We seen a squad and he was coming and the van had already stopped and we ended up on the side of him. And all [of] a sudden there was cops all over surrounding him and half of them knew me and I could hardly talk still. They let us go because they called us a reporting citizen. . . . The cops said, “We know what you do but you don’t deserve this so we’re taking him in.”

Not all of the incidents were reported by the women themselves; in fact, in 8 of the 42 cases that were reported, a third party reported the crime. In each of these incidents, the injuries women received were visually obvious and prompted family members or even strangers to notify the police; yet in all but two of these cases, women were present and conscious while police were being called, suggesting that they were open to law enforcement involvement. For example, a woman in Baltimore recounted the time when she was robbed and raped as she was going home on the bus.

The last bus I was on, the bus driver and another man on the bus robbed me and raped me on the bus. . . . They tied my arms up, and tied my legs. . . . They took my pocketbook and left me out there.

As she was walking along the road, an elderly couple found her and called the police. A woman in Minneapolis described a similar experience. After being sexually and physically assaulted by a trick, she was walking home. She recalled,

I was crying and I must have been really loud ’cause this guy came out of his apartment and said “I’m calling the police, are you okay?” and he did and sat with me on the corner with his little dog. He even gave me a bunch of cigarettes to calm me down.

In Baltimore, a woman told us that after a particularly vicious sexual assault, two men found her lying unconscious in the road and took her home. When her mother saw her injuries, she immediately called police. Another woman said that the person who found her passed out in the street took her to the hospital. The hospital subsequently notified the police.

The fact that these women reported or allowed others to report on their behalf, though it required them to potentially implicate themselves in a crime, suggests that they also felt there was a greater purpose in reporting. One woman even said, “I know this guy did the same thing to a couple other girls out on the block too. It was like our word, you know, like this guy was out there doing this all the time.” In other words, reporting to police not only had the potential to bring her justice, but could also help to protect future victims. Even in two cases when women did not report their own sexual assaults to police, they eventually were contacted by Baltimore police to assist with other similar cases, likely because they were known sex workers in the area. In one of these cases, after a Black woman was raped at knifepoint by a stranger in her neighborhood, she did not call police. She continued her story:

I ain’t call the police, but like two weeks later, the police was looking for this same person for raping a 12-year-old girl and splitting her vagina area wide open with a knife. The police asked me if I knew him and I said I did because he had raped me too.

Although she did not want to call police on her own behalf, the brutality of the second attack and the age of the victim compelled her to assist in identifying the perpetrator. In the end, she told the police where he could be found.

What Happened When Women Reported?

Some research has found that police response to prior victimizations, especially the perceived investigatory effort, can have an effect on willingness to report subsequent victimizations (Xie et al., 2006). Therefore, it is also important to assess how women describe their experiences with the police after they had reported their assault. For the 29 incidents with police involvement and information on satisfaction, we examined the victims’ levels of satisfaction with law enforcement assistance. Satisfaction was measured using a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all satisfied) to 5 (very satisfied). The mean score for this scale was 2.9 (SD = 1.9), but it obscures the fact that the largest proportion of women (41%) reported that they were “not at all” satisfied with the police.

When asked why they were unsatisfied, most women responded that the police did not show up or take them seriously. For example, one Black woman said that she was not at all satisfied because after her boyfriend attempted to sexually assault her in public, she called the Baltimore police but they never came.¹³ She told us, “I waited a while, sat back on the steps of where I was supposed to be and I never saw them.” Some of the women’s dissatisfaction also appeared to stem from the inability of the police officers to apprehend the offender. As another woman stated, “I went and called the police [following the attack], but they didn’t find him.”

In other cases, women told us that the police refused to even take a report, or did not really try to make an arrest, instead suggesting that they had done something wrong. For example, a Minneapolis woman who denied involvement in sex work flagged down police on the street after a sexual assault and robbery. In her words, the police were

completely mean to me. [They] started saying I was a prostitute and it was probably my john, and how they see me walking around the neighborhood . . . they were mean to me and didn’t want to make a report . . . the police were horrible to me about it.

Another woman who was engaged in sex work and tried to report an attack to police in the area also told us, “they refused to do a report.” Similarly, a 24-year-old American Indian woman described an attempted attack by a potential customer. After she got away from him, she ran to a nearby pizza parlor where she knew police officers frequently hung out. When she told them what had happened, she said that they “acted like they didn’t give a fuck, they didn’t even chase him.” Although the police did not attempt to apprehend the offender, they did take her to the hospital for treatment of her injuries. Finally, a woman from Baltimore also described an attempted sexual assault in which her finger was badly cut by the offender’s weapon. She recalled, “The police came, but he [the officer] was trying to make me like I did something wrong. He came up to the hospital harassing me, so I just left it like that.” Thus, the officer’s response led her to drop the case. The man who attempted to rape her was ultimately apprehended. She continued,

But it just so happened, the man tried to grab somebody else, and got caught. And the girl that knew what had happened to me, she had gave my information to the police that came to take her call . . . and they came to me and got me to identify the man, and I did. The man was arrested, and then they got on the officer who treated me bad, and I don’t know what they did with him.

Thus, not only was her attacker arrested (though not for raping her) but also the police officer who initially responded and treated her poorly was reprimanded.

Not all of the women who contacted the police were unsatisfied, however. A smaller percentage (31%) reported they were very satisfied, while 28% rated their satisfaction somewhere in the middle of the satisfaction continuum. The level of satisfaction women reported appears to be related to whether their attackers were arrested. An independent-sample t test showed that the mean level of satisfaction for victimizations in which the attacker was arrested was significantly higher (M = 4.5) than those cases with no arrests (M = 2.4), t(27) = 3.72, p < .001. This relationship is also evident in the narrative data. For example, a 32-year-old Black woman who was raped by her boyfriend reported that she was satisfied with the Baltimore police because they “helped” her and arrested him. The American Indian woman from Minneapolis—whose attacker pulled out a gun, nightstick, and a pair of handcuffs—said that she was very satisfied because the responding officers cut the handcuffs off of her and then drove around looking for the offender. Her response was unanticipated given that she was known to police for her involvement in sex work. Similarly, a 29-year-old American Indian woman from Baltimore, who was raped while hitchhiking, said that she “was surprised [by the police reaction]. He [the responding officer] came by quite a few times [to see] if I was okay. Treated me very nice.”

Discussion

Victimization is often described as the “cost of doing business” among male drug offenders and, consequently, relatively few of these incidents are reported to police. However, the degree to which such sentiments hold true for women offenders and for a highly gendered form of attack, such as sexual assault, is unclear.

Our findings suggest that women offenders who are sexually victimized are about as likely as nonoffending women to report the attack: Approximately one quarter of sexual assault incidents in our sample were reported to police and the majority (32 of 42) were reported by the victim herself. So what motivated these women (or others on their behalf) to call the police? Consistent with research on women in the general population, it is clear that the characteristics and the sheer brutality of the attack were important factors. Results from both our quantitative and qualitative analyses suggest that the need for medical attention increased the likelihood of reporting. Indeed, the attacks described by women in our sample, particularly those who were involved in sex work, often involved weapons, strangers, force, and injury, and also were quite likely to involve the co-occurrence of other crimes, including kidnapping and robbery. Even at the risk of their own arrest, some of the women sought assistance from the police. In such cases, it seems that the characteristics of a “real rape” were more important in determining the response to victimization than the presumed characteristics of a “real victim” (Du Mont et al., 2003). In two cases, women even assisted police (and in one case, this was despite the fact that she did not report her own attack) in an effort to prevent future violence or to keep potentially dangerous men away from their neighborhoods.

At the same time, it is important to note that one of our quantitative findings runs contrary to the notion that more serious rapes are more likely to be reported. Although there is evidence that sexual attacks involving penetration are taken more seriously by the police (e.g., Frazier & Haney, 1996; LaFree, 1981), in our sample, attacks that involved penetration were less likely to be reported than attempted attacks and other types of sexual assaults such as forced contact. This unexpected finding cannot be explained by differences across incident types in the severity of the victimization, the relationship between the victim and the offender, or the number of offenders. Nor can it be explained by differences in the offender’s or victim’s use of drugs or alcohol at the time of the incident or the victim’s offending. One possible explanation is that incidents involving penetration resulted in more shame than attempted assaults or forced contact. As one woman told us, “Being raped, you feel so nasty and so dirty.” Such incidents may have also made women blame themselves more if they believed (or perceived that others might believe) they should have been able to fend off their attacker (e.g., Weiss, 2010). Additional research is needed to better understand this finding and to ascertain whether this is a unique correlate of reporting for crime-involved women.

Nevertheless, the majority of these offenders did not contact the police after being sexually assaulted. While this finding is consistent with Black’s (1983) theory, which suggests that lower status individuals have less recourse to the law, we did not observe women taking the law into their own hands. In fact, the traditional modes of self-help like violent revenge or theft that have been so well documented among victimized male offenders (see, for example, Mullins et al., 2004; Rosenfeld et al., 2003) were rare occurrences in our sample of female offenders. When women did consider using violent self-help to deal with their victimization, consistent with Baumgartner’s (1984) “Social Control From Below,” they sought out men to assist them.

Instead, women offenders’ reasons for not contacting the police after being sexually assaulted resonate with the reasons women in the general population give for not reporting a sexual victimization to the police: They felt ashamed or blamed themselves for their victimization. Their narratives suggest that feelings of shame were particularly relevant in those cases in which women were using drugs or alcohol or were involved in illegal activities like sex work. A number of the women also believed that the police would not necessarily help them, either because they would not believe their accusations or because they too would blame the woman for her victimization. Thus, for offending women who have been sexually assaulted, the shame and fear of not being a credible victim seems to be amplified due to their illegal activity.

Only a handful of women explained their reluctance to contact police as uniquely related to their own involvement in illegal activity. The quantitative analyses revealed that drug use at the time of the incident reduced the likelihood that women would contact police, but the qualitative analyses indicated the reluctance to report is not necessarily a function of women’s concern over arrest or the fact that they were high. Instead, in many of these cases, drug use appeared to dull women’s negative reactions to trauma. If women had to choose between getting high and calling police to report their victimization (and subsequently waiting for them to arrive, take their statement, and possibly transport them to the hospital), they chose to get high. Rather than seek formal mechanisms of justice, women used drugs to cope with the trauma of victimization. Instrumental concerns may also have been at play here: Among heroin addicts, reporting might have delayed access to the drugs they needed to avoid getting sick, thus making the potential costs associated with reporting too high.

In the end, our findings suggest that the “code of the street” on police involvement does not apply to sexual violence in the same way that it applies to the male-dominated drug market or, more generally, the male offending culture. Male offenders may not cooperate with law enforcement, in part because they perceive that the police treat them unfairly and harass them during their day-to-day interactions (Rosenfeld et al., 2003). This did not appear as a dominant theme in our analyses. Although women did describe mistreatment by law enforcement, they just as often raised concerns about distributive justice. More specifically, the narratives and survey data indicate that when women did not report, it was not because they viewed their relationship with the police as inherently antagonistic, but rather because they thought the police were unlikely to do anything to help them; simply put, they would reap little by “calling the cops.” The importance of instrumental concerns is also evident in our findings on women’s satisfaction with the police; women are more satisfied with the police when the perpetrator has been arrested.

As such, our work reiterates the gendered nature of victimization on the street and the complicated relationships between law enforcement and women offenders; women may occasionally turn to police for protection or assistance and police may rely on women for information about the street. At the same time, it could be that this strategy is only reserved for aggravated rape, an extremely gendered crime. Perhaps the (still) paternalistic nature of law enforcement only works for women offenders who are perceived—and perceive themselves—to have experienced a “real rape” by virtue of their injuries. Whether these findings can be generalized to other types of victimization remains to be seen. Future research will need to determine whether women offenders who are victimized in other ways have a similar set of factors they weigh (i.e., self-blame, drug addiction, injuries) when deciding whether to contact the police and, moreover, how the police respond to their calls for assistance.

Regardless of these victims’ offending histories, our findings have important implications for law enforcement. First, our work suggests that police officers should repress or at least work to hide their own skepticism and disbelief of victim stories. The women in our sample feared that they would not be believed or, in some cases, had their reports dismissed immediately by police without further investigation. Greater support of victims, including following up with cases and returning phone calls, is associated with higher satisfaction, and may encourage future cooperation with police. If it proves to be effective, a law enforcement initiative in Baltimore to encourage reporting and counter anti-snitching campaigns may serve as a model for future programs, particularly to reach men and women at high risk of victimization.¹⁴ Second, we discovered that women who used drugs were unlikely to call police, even following vicious attacks. Particularly among heroin addicts, reporting was presumed to delay access to the drugs they needed to avoid getting sick. Streamlined reporting procedures that are sensitive to the needs of victims may be important for encouraging cooperation. In the long run, these tactics may provide broader public safety benefits if police are able to arrest violent offenders. And they will surely contribute to a greater understanding of the nature and extent of sexual assaults among all victims.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Women’s Experiences of Violence team for allowing us access to the data. The authors would also like to thank Jody Miller for her helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported by a grant from the National Consortium on Violence Research (NCOVR) to Professors Julie Horney, Sally Simpson, Rosemary Gartner, and Candace Kruttschnitt.

Notes

Author Biographies

Kristin Carbone-Lopez is an associate professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, crime, and victimization, with a particular emphasis on violence between intimate partners.

Lee Ann Slocum is an associate professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri, St. Louis. Her recent work examines the factors that influence crime reporting, including victims’ prior experiences with the police.

Candace Kruttschnitt is a professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto. She is currently cochairing the National Academy of Sciences Panel on Measuring Incidences of Rape and Sexual Assault in Bureau of Justice Statistics Household Surveys. In addition, she is working (with Catrien Bijleveld) on a study of the women’s pathways to prison in the Netherlands.

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