Can We Use Case Characteristics to Identify the Source of Bias? Further Exploration of Same-Sex Statutory Sex Offense Outcomes

• In Event: Advances in Sex Offense Policy Research: Sex Offender Sentencing

Abstract

Previous studies have suggested potential sources of bias in the handling of statutory sex crime cases when they involve perpetrators and victims of the same sex. Yet it has been difficult to untangle the exact nature of the bias beyond the observed disparities in same-sex statutory case outcomes. This paper utilizes the detailed nature of case records provided by the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) to take into account additional details of statutory sex offense cases beyond age, gender, and race. Using multilevel modeling, the goal of this paper is to adjust for state-level variation while taking advantage of the large number of same-sex cases that are available in NIBRS to perform statistical comparisons.

Author

• Kei Saito, University of New Hampshire