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Upon encountering victim resistance during the commission of a sexual assault, an offender makes a decision as to how to react to the resistance via the use of varying degrees of coercive or noncoercive tactics. Exhaustive chi-squared automatic interaction detection (CHAID) analyses were performed on a sample of 369 criminal events to detect the significant situational and crime-specific factors, the pertinent interactions between these factors, and how these affect an offender’s reaction to victim resistance depending on whether the victim is a child or an adult. Findings show that multiple interactions do occur and, moreover, factors affecting the offender’s reaction to victim resistance are very different depending on whether the victim is a child or an adult. Planning and preparation variables, such as the offender’s attack strategy, were found to be significant in the child victim model, whereas reactive variables, such as the type of victim resistance, were found to be significant in the adult victim model. The findings lend support to the social interactionist perspective and the importance of victim–offender dynamics.

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When confronted with a sexual attacker, women are often extremely concerned with avoiding rape completion. While narrative reviews typically suggest that the victim resistance is linked to rape avoidance, much of the existing literature relies on overlapping samples from the National Crime Victimization Survey. The current meta-analysis examines whether victim resistance is related to a greater likelihood of avoiding rape completion. Results from a systematic literature search across 25 databases supplemented by a search of the gray literature resulted in 4,581 hits of which seven studies met eligibility criteria for the review. Findings suggest that women who resist their attacker are significantly more likely than nonresisters to avoid rape completion. This finding held across analyses for physical resistance, verbal resistance, or resistance of any kind. Limitations of the analysis and policy implications are discussed, with particular focus on other research findings that resistance may be linked to greater victim injury.

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Circumstances under which a sexual assault takes place and how these circumstances affect offenders' reactions to victim resistance are not well understood. Previous studies have not thoroughly examined the interactions that take place between situational factors and resistance. Using a combination of logistic regression and Chi-square Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) analyses, we examine victim, situational, and crime characteristics of 426 sexual assaults involving victim resistance to determine which of these factors increase the likelihood of offender violence. Findings suggest that violence is affected by both the attack strategy employed by the offender and the type of resistance by the victim, along with several other qualifying factors.

PurposeVictim resistance has been shown to have an important impact on the outcome of sexual assaults. Thus, the factors that affect a victim’s likelihood of various levels of resistance are relevant to consider, given the possibly detrimental effect these actions can have on crime outcome. While not intended to blame the victim in any way, it is important to examine the role the victim plays within a sexually coercive interchange in order to completely understand the sex crime event and, thus, be able to inform potential victims as to the patterns that increase resistance and, potentially, overall violence. The paper aims to discuss this issue.Design/methodology/approachSequential logistic regression analyses were conducted on a sample of 613 sex offenses (incorporating both adult and child victims) to examine the individual and combined effects of offender lifestyle, disinhibitors, victim vulnerability, situational impediments and offender modus operandi on victim resistance levels.FindingsResults suggest that indicators of offender mindset are significant, particularly the use of pornography prior to the crime, and affect victim interpretation and response to the offender’s actions during the course of the assault. Other relevant factors include the victim’s age and the degree of violence present in the offender’s approach and subsequent offending strategies.Originality/valueThis information would be helpful to incorporate into victim education programs so that past and future potential victims can better understand the criminal event and the causes and effects of their own actions within that event.

The sexual victimization of adult males remains an understudied subject within criminology. Prior research has generally been restricted to descriptive analysis of small clinical samples and inmate populations. Using general strain theory (GST), this study examines the simultaneous influence of community- and incident-level factors on the likelihood of weapon use and victim injury in cases of adult male sexual victimization. This study applies hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM) to 2,155 cases of sexual victimization of adult males nested within 113 U.S. cities. Community-level data are procured from the 2011-2015 American Community Survey (ACS) 5-year summary file and incident-level data are taken from cases of sexual violence contained in the 2011-2015 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Findings demonstrate moderate support for GST as a framework through which to examine male sexual victimization, as community levels of disadvantage/violence and ethnic heterogeneity, as well as offender gender, race, intoxication, and weapon use each exhibit statistically significant relations with crime severity. This study finds that community and situational context are each important in predicting weapon use and victim injury, demonstrating the need to further explore male sexual victimization from a multilevel perspective.