Stereotypical Hate Crimes and Criminal Justice Processing: A Multi-Dataset Comparison of Bias Crime Arrest Patterns by Offender and Victim Race

Many hate crimes are not reported and even fewer hate crimes result in an arrest. This study investigates patterns of victim reporting and arrest for hate crimes in two parts. First, using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, we find that, controlling for offense severity, hate crimes are less likely than non-bias crimes to be reported to the police and that the police are less likely to take further action for hate crimes, compared to non-hate crimes. Second, we use data from the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission and the National Incident-Based Reporting System to compare differences between types of hate crimes in the likelihood of crime clearance. We find that those hate crimes most likely to result in arrest are those that fit the profile of a “stereotypical” hate crime: violent incidents, incidents committed by hate groups, and incidents involving white offenders and black victims.     

Trends in Police-recorded Offences

This article presents 10-year trends (1998–2007) on some common crimes: homicide, assault, rape, robbery, car theft, domestic burglary and drug offences. In addition, a few less common offences in police statistics, such as money laundering, corruption, offences against computer data and systems are discussed, even though trends of these crimes are not available. Trends are shown from Western, Central and Eastern Europe, where significant sociopolitical changes have occurred. Although police data actually describes more the recording practices of the officials than the amount of crime, police data is highly valuable for research purposes. Most countries continuously collect information about police activity, and the police is mostly the starting point for proceeding with a case in the criminal justice system. In the USA, all common offences recorded by the police have decreased during the recent years. In Europe, property crimes, homicide and robbery have decreased in most countries, but violence and drug crimes have increased. According to the crime victim surveys, the increase in assault cannot be explained by the increasing reporting activity of victims; the increase seems real. The level of crime differs considerably in different areas: for instance, homicide is most common in Eastern Europe, but assault is much higher in Western Europe.     

Racial Context and Crime Reporting: A Test of Black’s Stratification Hypothesis

Contextual factors that contribute to race differences in reporting crime to the police are an important element in Donald Black??s theory of the behavior of the law, yet few studies have investigated whether these differences vary depending on social context. The present study investigates whether the relationships between victim and offender race and the reporting of crime are moderated by the level of racial stratification in a given place as Black??s stratification hypothesis would predict. Using victim survey data from 40 metropolitan areas, as well as data from other sources, we find results that are consistent with Black??s stratification hypothesis, namely, that victim and offender race are more strongly associated with the reporting of crime in those metropolitan areas where the gap in economic status between blacks and whites is larger and the groups are more residentially segregated. The theory, however, is unable to account for the high rates of reporting of black-on-black assaults found across the 40 metropolitan areas. The question of how the needs of black victims may outweigh their reluctance to call the police is an important issue for future research.     

Patterns of offending in urban and rural areas

Although the level of crime varies dramatically across the urban-rural dimension, little research has been directed at the issue of the patterns of offending across this dimension. Using National Crime Survey (NCS) victimization data, this paper examines to what extent the patterns of offending by particular age, race, and sex subgroups are similar in urban and rural areas. It was found that the patterns of age, race, and sex offending are essentially the same in both urban and rural areas. Particularly impressive is the consistency in the rankings (from high to low) of the propensity of offending in urban and rural areas when age, race, and sex were examined simultaneously. Also, these NCS data generally parallel Uniform Crime Reports arrest data with respect to the offender characteristics of age, race, and sex. This suggests that existing criminological theories can be applied to rural, as well as urban, crime patterns regarding the issue of offender characteristics.     

Context Matters: Violence Against Women and Reporting to Police in Rural, Suburban and Urban Areas

Despite plentiful efforts to identify perpetrator, victim, and incident characteristics correlated with reporting violence against women to police, few studies have addressed the contexts that shape such reporting. Even fewer have examined variations in these contexts across geographic areas. Drawing upon National Crime Victimization Survey data from 1992 through 2009, this paper uses conjunctive analysis of case configurations to identify and investigate the dominant situational contexts of reporting of violence against women to police across rural, suburban, and urban areas. Our findings show that context matters and the importance of incident, perpetrator, and victim characteristics vary across geographic areas.     

Consistency in crime site selection: An investigation of crime sites used by serial sex offenders across crime series

PurposeKnowing sites used by serial sex offenders to commit their crimes is highly beneficial for criminal investigations. However, environmental choices of serial sex offenders remain unclear to this date. Considering the challenges these offenders pose to law enforcement, the study aims to identify sites serial sex offenders use to encounter and release their victims and investigate their stability across crime series.MethodsThe study uses latent class analysis (LCA) to identify victim encounter and release sites used by 72 serial sex offenders having committed 361 sex offenses. Additional LCA are performed to investigate the stability of these offense environments across offenders' crimes series.ResultsDistinct profiles of crime sites that are recurrent across crime series are found, suggesting that serial sex offenders present a limited diversity of victim encounter and victim release sites. Encounter sites representative of longer crime series are also identified. Specifically, the use of sites known to "attract" potential victims decreases over series and offenders become more risk-taking in regard of sites used to encounter their victims.ConclusionsThe study identifies patterns of site- selection for the victim encounter and release in cases of serial crimes. Implications for crime linkage and police investigations strategies are discussed.     

The fear of reprisal and the failure of victims to report a personal crime

Most people who fail to report their victimizations to the police state either that the incident was not serious enough to warrant official attention or that nothing could be done. However, a small proportion of victims states that they did not report because of their fear of reprisal. Based on National Crime Panel victimization data, the offense and personal characteristics of these victims are contrasted with the total victim and nonreporting victim populations. Contrary to the general reasons for not reporting a crime, several personal and offense characteristics are related to reprisal. For instance, reprisal is more often a factor in personal victimizations where victims are female and acquainted with their offenders. The more dangerous the incident, the more often reprisal is the stated reason for not calling the police. The results of the analysis strongly suggest that in certain social environments the fear of reprisal is a major factor in the reporting of crime.     

The stalking victim's decision to contact the police: A test of Gottfredson and Gottfredson's theory of criminal justice decision making

There is a significant body of research exploring the reporting behaviors of crime victims. Much of this literature has focused on specific types of victimization (e.g., sexual assault) and the correlates of victim reporting. Recently, the crimes of stalking and cyberstalking have received empirical attention; however, few studies have examined the reporting behaviors of victims of these crimes. Using the theoretical framework proposed by Gottfredson and Gottfredson (1988), the current study explored how offense seriousness, the victim-offender relationship, and the prior record of the offender influenced a victim's decision to contact the police. Data were drawn from the 2006 stalking supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey, which examined stalking in the United States. Results offered support to Gottfredson and Gottfredson (1988) and highlighted the significance of understanding the reporting behaviors for this sample of crime victims. Differences in reporting for victims of stalking and cyberstalking were also examined.     

Victim survey research: Implications for criminal justice planning

The historic use of offense reports by police agencies for decision making is examined in the light of another data source — victim surveys. Survey information data can be used to: (1) more reliably estimate the extent and distribution of crime in a community; (2) evaluate the effectiveness of innovative programs; (3) develop police-sponsored public education programs; (4) describe the characteristics of victims and high crime areas; (5) sensitize police to the needs of the victim; and (6) develop police training programs that include dealing with the victim.     

The Effect of Prior Police Contact on Victimization Reporting: Results from the Police–Public Contact and National Crime Victimization Surveys

Objectives

This study explores the association between past-year face-to-face contact with the police and subsequent victimization reporting. It also examines whether this relationship depends on the type of encounter (citizen-initiated contacts, routine vehicle stops, invasive encounters associated with being a suspect), its perceived justness, or victim characteristics. Among victims who did not notify the police, the reasons behind this decision are assessed to understand the mechanisms through which police encounters are related to reporting.

Methods

This research is the first to use longitudinal data that link the 2002, 2008, and 2011 Police Public Contact Surveys to the 2002–2014 National Crime Victimization Surveys. Multivariate logistic regression is used to examine the effect of prior contact on police notification among victims of personal (N = 1073) and household (N = 11,433) crimes.

Results

Prior contact with the police has no main effect on the reporting of personal crimes; however, the negative effects of police-initiated and unjust contact are amplified for the poor and African Americans. The reporting of household crimes varies based on prior police experiences and whether they were viewed as just. Personal crime victims with invasive contact are more likely than other contact groups to attribute non-reporting to fear of reprisal.

Conclusions

Using national data tells a complex story about how race/ethnicity, poverty, and recent experiences with the police interact to shape victims’ behavior. The intricacies of these findings suggest that efforts to increase reporting may need to be multifaceted and address victims’ concerns about safety and justness.

     

The effect of police on crime,disorder and victim precaution. Evidence from a Dutch victimization survey

Using individual data from a large-scale Dutch crime victimization survey, we are able to expand the analysis of the effect of police on crime to crimes types that do not easily find their way into police statistics, and to public disorder and victim precaution. To address heterogeneity and simultaneity in the relation between police and crime, we model the police funding formula – used to distribute police resources across municipalities – to identify the endogenous variation in police levels. We use the remaining variation in police levels to identify the effect of police. We find significantly negative effects of higher police levels on property and violent crime, public disorder, and victim precaution. The effect on victim precaution is a hitherto largely ignored benefit of higher police levels not reflected in lower rates of crime and public disorder.     

Reporting to the police in western nations: A theoretical analysis of the effects of social context

One of the most consistent findings in empirical studies using victimization data is that the decision to report victimization to the police is determined in large part by the seriousness of the crime. The police will be notified more often of crimes that involve more serious injury or greater monetary loss. These findings, however, may be due to the fact that most studies on reporting have been conducted using victimization surveys that devote a great deal of attention to the crime event and victim characteristics and much less to the social context of that event. As a result, influences on reporting operating at the neighborhood, jurisdiction, or nation level have been neglected. The aim of this paper is to bring social context into the discourse on reporting to the police by presenting a much more inclusive model of crime reporting. In addition, the influence of four aspects of macro-level social context on reporting are tested—the perceived competence of the police, institutionalization of insurance business, norm of conformity, and level of individualism—by merging incident-level data from the International Crime Victims Survey (ICVS) for 16 Western industrialized countries with nation-level data from various sources. Hierarchical logistic modeling is used to analyze the nested data. The perceived competence of the police has a positive effect on whether property crimes are reported.     

Area Differences and Time Trends in Crime Reporting: Comparing New York with Other Metropolitan Areas

Police measures of crime are shaped by victims’ decisions to notify the police. To obtain a better understanding of US crime trends, this study uses the National Crime Victimization Survey to examine geographic differences and temporal trends in crime reporting in New York and other metropolitan areas for the period 1979-2004. We find that net of crime characteristics and survey methodology, the New York metropolitan area showed fewer increases in crime reporting than did other metropolitan areas. These divergent trends suggest that the real differences in the drop of nonlethal violence between New York and other areas may have been smaller than those indicated by police-based crime statistics. We also find that from the early 1990s to 2004, New York showed a sharp decrease in the likelihood of victims perceiving that “police wouldn’t help.” This trend suggests that police reforms in New York City have not resulted in more victims using police-related reasons to explain their nonreporting behavior. Instead, researchers need to develop a broader theoretical framework (not an exclusive focus on police actions) to understand how police- and nonpolice-related factors may explain the geographic variation in the trends of reporting observed in this study.     

Intimidation and Street Gangs: Understanding the Response of Victims and Bystanders to Perceived Gang Violence

While research routinely examines the influence of gang membership on the quantity of violent crime involvement, less is known about the influence of gang violence on the situational characteristics of violent victimization. Felson’s discussion of street gangs highlights the possible functional role gang membership plays in the commission of violent crime; what he terms “the street gang strategy.” This study examines the functionality of gang membership during violent crimes by investigating the influence of perceived gang membership on the likelihood of victim resistance, bystander intervention, and police reporting using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Findings offer little support for the idea that gang members intimidate victims and bystanders to the extent that their behavior during and after violence differs systematically from responses resulting from non‐gang violence. Results are discussed in terms of their policy relevance and implications for future research.     

Unreported crimes,public dissatisfaction of police,and observed police misconduct in the Volgograd region,Russia: A research note

The paper examines the issue of widespread underreporting of crimes in the Volgograd region of Russia. The factors of public satisfaction with police, prior observed police misconduct, type of crime, and victim’s demographics are used to explain a victim’s decision to report crimes to the police. The research is based on a representative sample of Russian citizens conducted over a 9 year period in the Volgograd region (1998–2007) with a sample size of 1332 cases. The study concludes that prior observed police misconduct, especially the falsification of documents, is the strongest predictor of victims’ decisions to report crimes. The research holds critical implications for the ongoing reform of Russian police.     

Information,apprehension, and deterrence: Exploring the limits of police productivity

The capacity of police departments to solve crimes and apprehend offenders is low for many types of crime, particularly crimes of profit. This article reviews a variety of studies of police apprehension and hypothesizes that an important determinant of the ability of the police to apprehend criminals is information. The complete absence of information for many types of crime places fairly clear upper bounds on the ability of the police to effect solutions.To discover whether these boundaries are high or low we analyzed data from the 1973 National Crime Panel about the types and amount of information potentially available to police through victim reports and patrol activities. The evidence suggests that if the police rely on information made readily available to them, they will never do much better than they are doing now. On the other hand, there appears to be more information available to bystanders and passing patrols than currently is being used, which suggests that surveillance strategies and improved police methods for eliciting, recording, and analyzing information supplied by victims and witnesses might increase the probability of solving crimes and making arrests. In light of this we review a few possibly helpful innovations suggested in the literature on police productivity and procedure.     

Police Response to Crime

Abstract

Based on victim accounts provided by the National Crime Victimization Survey from 1992 to 1999, this paper examines issues related to police responses to reported incidents of assault, robbery, and rape. The primary goal was to determine the extent to which victim and offender race influence police responsiveness at various stages of the criminal justice system. The data indicate that overall, police exert more effort when victims are white. They arrive faster at the scene of the crime, and demonstrate more follow-up effort after the crime has taken place. However, they do not exert more, or less effort, during their initial visit to the crime scene, when there is proximate contact with the victims. This suggests that contextual factors may affect the penchant for discrimination. This relationship held even after controlling for other factors such as poverty, weapon use, injury to the victim, and location.     

Victimization surveys and the accuracy and reliability of official crime data in developing countriesPublications received

The accuracy and reliability of official crime data are always suspect because knowledge of crime depends on the independent decision made by each victim of whether or not to report her/his experiences to the police. Victimization surveys allow estimates of degrees of inaccuracy, but such research is rarely done in developing countries. The little research done on victimization and the police in developing countries shows that levels of nonreporting, reasons for nonreporting, and relations between the public and the police to whom one would report are vastly different among developing countries and between developing and developed countries. One cannot assume, therefore, that the impact of victim behavior on the accuracy and reliability of official data will be similar across countries.     

Personal fraud victims and their official responses to victimization

The bulk of the research on predatory crime focuses on characteristics, profiles, and patterns of offenders. This information is important, but from the perspective of police agencies, information about the victims of predatory crimes, including victims of white-collar predatory crimes, and how they officially respond to victimization is also important. Using survey data from a random sample of 400 residents of Knox County, Tennessee, we investigated the characteristics of victims of thirteen different types of fraud. After dividing individuals into categories of non-victims, one-time victims, and repeat victims, we develop profiles of personal fraud victims by examining differences in key demographic and offense characteristics. Next, we investigate the official reporting behavior of victims. The results are instructive for police agencies as they highlight common characteristics of fraud victims and suggest methods for encouraging fraud victims to report their victimization to police.