Hear and listen: identifying variation in victim accounts of violence and sexual assault

• In Event: Narrative Accounts of Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence and Factors Associated with Civil Protection Orders

Abstract

As academic fields, victimology and traumatology add new dimensions to knowledge regarding how victim/survivors experience a variety of criminal justice contexts. For the purpose of developing best practices, practitioners must build an understanding that encompasses a variety of contexts, including scenarios of criminal acts, as well as feelings of victimization by the criminal justice or law enforcement process. This study compares narratives (N=102) describing traumatic events, including sexual assault, interpersonal violence, and death. Narratives of sexual assault were isolated to compare characteristics of victim/survivor description with non-sexual assault events. In doing so, we identify how victim/survivors of both sexual and non-sexual violence events describe how they associate their response to sources of support with emotional and procedural outcomes.

Authors

• Jess Bonnan-White, Stockton University

• Bridget K. Diamond-Welch, University of South Dakota

• Anna E. Kosloski, University of Colorado Colorado Springs

• Sara Martino, Stockton University

• Melanie Hetzel-Riggin, Penn State Erie, The Behrend College