Demographic and Situational Factors Affecting Injury, Resistance, Completion, and Charges Brought in Sexual Assault Cases: What Is Best for Arrest?

Reactions to Resistance: The Role of Contextual Factors in Sex Offending

“…Research has focused on determining what situational factors increase violence levels within sexual assaults (Carr & VanDeusen, 2004;Coker, Walls, & Johnson, 1998;Hartwick, Desmarais, & Hennig, 2007;Porter & Alison, 2006;Scott & Beaman, 2004;Weaver, Wittekind, Huff-Corzine, Corzine, Petee, & Jarvis, 2004;Wilcox, Jordan, & Pritchard, 2006), but most studies give no significant consideration to how this relates to victim resistance. However, as discussed previously, Ullman has determined that particular situational and crime factors influence the efficacy of resistance (Ullman & Knight, 1993) but that, in general, the likelihood of victim injury and rape completion outcomes is reduced when the victim resists to the greatest extent possible.…”

“…Overall, the presence of a weapon has been found to significantly increase victim injury and violence levels, as well as the proportion of completed rapes (Coker et al, 1998;Porter & Alison, 2006;Ullman, 2007b;Ullman & Knight, 1993;Weaver et al, 2004). The use of alcohol or drugs has been reported to increase the level of violence and likelihood of rape completion, effects potentially due to reduced victim resistance (Carr & Vandeusen, 2004;Coker et al, 1998;Scott & Beaman, 2004;Ullman, 2007b;Ullman & Knight, 1993). Furthermore, there has been some research regarding the home environment of the victim, with findings that a victim with a criminogenic background is less likely to encounter an escalation of violence resulting in homicide during a sexual assault (Mieczkowski & Beauregard, 2010).…”

“…Despite the obvious agreement that offender-victim relationship is an important dimension to consider in any analysis of sexual assault, the literature has been inconclusive, and even contradictory, in how this relationship affects violence levels. Risk of violence has been suggested to be highest when the offender is known to the victim (Weaver et al, 2004), when the offender is a stranger (Scott & Beaman, 2004), and when the offender is a stranger or a romantic partner (Coker et al, 1998). This may be different still for child victims, who appear to be victims of more severe abuse when the abuse is perpetrated by a relative (Ullman, 2007a).…”

“…Target & Puechl, 1993;Hartwick et al, 2007;Scott & Beaman, 2004;Ullman, 1998;Ullman & Knight, 1992 or by comparing these groups or employing an age variable in their analyses (for example, Beauregard, Stone, Proulx, & Michaud, 2008;Coker et al 1998;Mieczkowski & Beauregard, 2010;Scott & Beaman, 2004;Spohn, 1994;Weaver et al 2004). This observed age dichotomy demonstrates the substantial expected difference between offenders who target young victims and offenders who target adults.…”

“…In general, studies indicate that offenders are most likely to escalate the degree of violence when offending against adult victims (Hunter, 2008;Scott & Beaman, 2004;Spohn, 1994;Weaver et al 2004), although Coker et al (1998) indicate a decline in traumatic injury to sexual assault victims over the age of 21.…”