Understanding the Role of Age in Decisions to Report Crimes: An Experiment

• In Event: Help-Seeking and Reporting Decisions for Crime and Victimization

Abstract

A variety of factors influence reporting crimes to the police. Such factors tend to be related to the victim, advisor, and offender. Little research has examined the role of age in advisors’ calculus to recommend a victim report a crime. For example, research finds that individuals are more punitive toward offenders when they perpetrate against youthful victims. Thus, to better understand the role the age of the victim and perpetrator have in advisors’ recommendations to report crimes to the police, we commissioned college students (n=1,263) to complete a survey with an embedded factorial experiment. Respondents were shown a vignette that depicted a sexual assault incident. The age of the victim (15 or 18) and the perpetrator (15 or 18) were randomly varied in the vignette. The results show when the advisor knew the perpetrator was 15 (vs. 18), they were less likely to recommend reporting the crime to the police. When the advisor knew the victim was 15 (vs. 18), they were significantly more likely to recommend reporting to the police. These results reveal (1) further evidence showing that age influences attitudes and decisions on crime related issues and (2) a potential contributor to the dark figure of crime.

Authors

• Suzanne Overstreet, Indiana University Southeast

• Alexander L. Burton, University of Texas at Dallas

• Nicole Wilkes, Wilmington College

• William Miller, University of Cincinnati