Unveiling Patterns of Non-Reporting: Exploring Victim-Offender Dynamics across Violent Crimes

Background & Purpose: Non-reporting of crimes to law enforcement significantly impedes justice system procedures. While the non-reporting of sexual assault is well-documented, understanding remains limited regarding reporting patterns of other violent crimes such as robbery and assaults. Investigating reporting rates across various violent victimizations is crucial for comprehensively addressing underreporting and ensuring equitable access to justice. Thus, this study aims to bridge this gap by exploring non-reporting patterns and the potential moderating role of victim-offender relationships. Comparing different types of victimization, with sexual assault as a control, promises insights into factors influencing non-reporting and disparities in reporting patterns across violent crimes.

Methods: This study utilized the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) data spanning 2016 to 2022 (N = 68,787), focusing on incident-level information. We subset the dataset to include only incidents that involved one of four violent crime types: sexual assault/rape, robbery, simple assault and aggravated assault. Each crime type was included as a predictor in a multivariable binary logistic regression model along with covariates representing gender, race-ethnicity, presence of a weapon, and victim-offender relationships (i.e., relative, non-relative, stranger). The dependent variable was whether or not the offense was reported to the police. The model accounted for survey design effects by including selection probability, stratification and primary sampling unit. Additional logistic regressions examined for those who did not report a crime, the main reason why they didn’t report.

Results: The analysis revealed significant associations between reporting to the police and various factors including the type of crime and the victim-offender relationship. Compared with sexual assault, robbery (OR=0.55, p<0.031) and aggravated assault (OR=0.58, p<0.003) were both less likely to be reported. Females (OR=0.70, p<0.010) were consistently less likely to report any offense compared to males. Notably, individuals were significantly less inclined to report if the offender was a non-relative (OR=0.42, p<0.04), emphasizing the impact of familiarity on reporting behavior. Similarly, crimes involving strangers were associated with a lower reporting likelihood (OR=0.70, p<0.001). Moreover, perceptions of police effectiveness significantly influenced reporting behavior (OR=0.51, p<0.010), with perceptions of police inability or unwillingness associated with decreased reporting, specifically in cases with strangers or non-relative offenders. Surprisingly, race-ethnicity was non-significant in the model.

Discussion & Implications: While previous studies predominantly focus on sexual assault/rape underreporting, our research unveils a wider trend of non-reporting across all violent offenses, notably prevalent when strangers are involved. We also found that when the offender was unknown to the victim, or when the victim did not believe that the police would be effective there was also a lower probability of reporting the offense. These findings emphasize the necessity for tailored interventions to promote reporting, especially in cases involving unfamiliar perpetrators. Future research could investigate why females are less likely to report violent crimes than males and why violent crimes are less likely to be reported where a stranger is the offender, as well as reasons for perceptions of police ineffectiveness. There is continued need to address these barriers in order to promote equitable access to support services for all victims.