The Reporting of Sexual Assault: Are There Patterns?

• In Event: 4155 - Section on Crime, Law, and Deviance Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: 1. Responses to Gendered Violence

Abstract

Sexual assault is one of the most underreported crimes. While much has been done to examine why individual survivors do or do not report their victimization and to whom they report, little has been done to examine longitudinal reporting patterns. Such an analysis may help identify times of high or low reporting, as well as triggers and/or barriers to reporting which may in turn guide resource management and inform institutional and public policy. This paper analyzes all formal reports of sexual assault made at the United States Naval Academy over the course of seven years. We find that reporting is not constant over time, but appears cyclical, with different patterns during the fall, spring, and summer semesters. Contrary to expectations, we find minimal evidence of an association between high-profile events and reporting patterns.

Authors

• Judith E. Rosenstein, United States Naval Academy

• Danielle L. Litchford, United States Naval Academy

• Elizabeth J. McGuffey, United States Naval Academy

• Margaret C. Nikolov, Kaiser Permanente