When are victims unlikely to cooperate with the police?
Abstract
Data from the National Incident‐Based Reporting System (NIBRS) are used to examine the tendency for victims of physical assault, sexual assault, and robbery to refuse to cooperate with the police (N= 3,856,171). Analyses of physical assaults involving homosexual and heterosexual couples did not support the hypothesis that women attacked by their male partners are less likely to cooperate than victims of other assaults. Analyses of violent offenses more generally showed that victims of violence were more likely to refuse to cooperate if they knew the offender in any way than if the offender was a stranger. In the case of physical and sexual assault, these effects were mainly observed for minor incidents. Finally, victims of sexual assault were more likely to cooperate with the police than victims of physical assault. The findings suggest the importance of comparing the victim's reactions to intimate partner violence and sexual assault to their reactions to other offenses. Aggr. Behav. 42:97–108, 2016. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
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Research quantifying the level of harm caused by violent co-offenders compared to individual offenders is relatively sparse.
“However, to date, research quantifying the level of harm caused by violent co-offenders compared to individual offenders is relatively sparse.”
From The Compounding Effect: How Co-Offending Exacerbates the Harm Caused by Violent Offenders (2024) · cites this paper as Felson and Lantz (2016)
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Lantz, B., Gladfelter, A. S., & Ruback, R. (2019) · Justice Quarterly · doi:10.1080/07418825.2017.1399211 · Cited by 84 · see citing works
“…The results suggest that victim refusal for hate crimes is very similar to other crimes in that refusal is primarily driven by offense severity (e.g. Felson & Lantz, 2016): victims are less likely to refuse to cooperate if there was a weapon involved or an incident resulted in an injury.”
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“The only piece of information that is available, and that has been analysed by recent work on violent offenses, is whether the incident is exceptionally cleared because of the lack of victim’s cooperation [52].”
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“Lastly, with regard to prosecutions, research from this site found that the embedded victim advocacy provided led to increased victims’ engagement in the process via more supportive and victimcentered practices, which in turn increased the prosecution success rate [39,47], as victim “cooperation” or lack thereof is on…”
BackgroundLantz, B. (2020) · doi:10.1177/1043986219894429 · Cited by 14
“As a result, most of this research has suffered from the lack of an effective comparison group (Felson & Lantz, 2016).”
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“Felson and Lantz (2016) found that victims who refuse to “cooperate” made up a small proportion of reported incidents; however, those who did not follow up may have done so out of fear of future violence from the offender.”
BackgroundThe Compounding Effect: How Co-Offending Exacerbates the Harm Caused by Violent Offenders
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“Lantz (2020) and Felson and Lantz (2016) employed differential classifications of violence by injury, but these were limited in sensitivity as they included only three categories (no injury, minor injury, and serious injury).”
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Employee/Management Sabotage Effects on Organizational Output
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“A successful counterattack is one effective way of nullifying the imputed negative identity by showing one's strength, competence, and courage (Felson and Glantz, 2016).”
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Self-citationAnalyzing the NIBRS Data: the Impact of the Number of Records Used per Segment
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“Large-scale quantitative studies—often using the NCVS— link reporting to factors such as age, gender, race, weapon presence, and injury severity, but offer limited traction on the lived calculus behind non-participation (Felson & Lantz, 2016).”
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“Nevertheless, IPV can only lead to criminal legal system contact if it comes to the attention of authorities—and much IPV goes unreported (Felson & Lantz, 2016; Felson & Paré, 2005).”
Paintsil, I. K. O. (2024) · Journal of Interpersonal Violence · doi:10.1177/08862605231221829
“Unlike opposite-sex IPV victims, same-sex IPV victims fear being outed and the collateral damage it could have on their employment, child cus-tody, and social image (Felson & Lantz, 2016).”
BackgroundExploring the Complexities Associated to Victimization
Hutton, E. (2020) · Media Controversy · doi:10.4018/978-1-5225-9869-5.ch014
- Authors
- Felson, R. B., & Lantz, B.
- Affiliations
- Pennsylvania State University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Felson, Richard B.
- Venue
- Aggressive Behavior
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2015-11-25
- Volume
- 42
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 97-108
- ISSN
- 0096-140X (ISSN-L)
- 1098-2337
- OpenAlex
- W2174219291
- Cited by
- 51
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 17 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 9 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 2
- FWCI
- 3.33
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Aggressive Behavior (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Health › Intimate Partner and Family Violence
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Policing Practices and Perceptions
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Sexual Assault and Victimization Studies
- Keywords
- victim reporting, intimate partner violence, sexual assault, physical assault, robbery, National Incident-Based Reporting System
- MeSH terms
- Intimate Partner Violence, Adolescent, Adult, Cooperative Behavior, Crime, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Sex Offenses, Violence, Police, Crime Victims, Young Adult
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