Examining the Paradox of Crime Reporting: Are Disadvantaged Victims More Likely to Report to the Police?

Zaykowski, Heather; Allain, Erin Cournoyer; Campagna, Lena

doi:10.1111/lasr.12440

Cited by 26 publications

(29 citation statements)

References 103 publications

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“…Similar versions of this seeming paradox have been noted in previous research on legal cynicism (e.g. Bell, 2016;Carr et al, 2007;Zaykowski et al, 2019). Indeed, estrangement does not preclude willingness to comply with and resorting to the police.…”

Section: Resentful Reliance On the Policesupporting

confidence: 74%

Racist Victimization, Legal Estrangement and Resentful Reliance on the Police in Sweden

Atak

2021

Social & Legal Studies

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Scholarly literature offers much insight into aggressive policing of racial minorities. However, research is not equally extensive regarding the experiences of racial minorities with law enforcement when police response might be decisive for their sense of recognition and protection as a community. Bridging debates from critical race studies, hate crimes and legal cynicism, this paper addresses how policing of racist victimization is experienced by members of racially targeted communities in Sweden. Drawing on interviews with people having personal and/or vicarious experiences with racist victimization, I analyze resentful reliance on the police through the concept of legal estrangement. While most respondents describe police treatment in somewhat positive terms, there is a shared resentment at the police due to the lived experience that racism often remains undetected. Previous interactions with law enforcement also pave the way for accumulated skepticism toward the utility of the policing of racial hatred. Disenchantment with law enforcement notwithstanding, reliance on the police manifests a will not just to be recognized as a victim, but also to make the pervasiveness of racism more visible.

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Section: Resentful Reliance On the Policesupporting

confidence: 74%

Racist Victimization, Legal Estrangement and Resentful Reliance on the Police in Sweden

Atak

2021

Social & Legal Studies

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“…Although we were unable to directly assess the mechanisms underlying these patterns with the NCVS data used in the present study, these results may indicate that reluctance to report to the police—among both Black and White victims—plays a stronger role in predicting actual reporting behavior when incidents are less severe. In other words, whereas prior research has frequently observed increased reporting among Black victims and noted that this pattern is often contrary to theoretical expectations (Zaykowski et al, 2019)—and we find similar patterns when examining more severe victimization—our results indicate that Black victims are not more likely than White victims to report victimization when the incident is less severe.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 86%

Severity matters: The moderating effect of offense severity in predicting racial differences in reporting of bias and nonbias victimization to the police.

Lantz¹,

Wenger²,

Malcom³

2022

Law and Human Behavior

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Objective: Previous research has noted contradictory findings regarding race and police notification, such that Black people indicate higher levels of distrust in the police yet report victimization to the police at rates similar to or higher than others. We investigated the role of offense severity in accounting for these discrepancies. Hypotheses: We hypothesized that severity would moderate racial differences in reporting, such that Black victims would be less likely to report less severe victimization but more likely to report more severe victimization. We expected that these differences would be less pronounced for bias-motivated crime, regardless of other markers of severity. Method: We used data from the 2003-2016 National Crime Victimization Survey, including information on 21,510 victimization incidents, 1,105 of which were hate crimes. We conducted logistic regression analyses in which reporting was regressed on victim race, offense severity, hate crime status, and control variables. We also examined interactive effects to disentangle whether severity moderated racial differences in notification. Results: We observed a three-way interaction of Black victims, offense severity, and hate crime status. Specifically, for nonbias incidents, Black victims were more likely than White victims to report severe incidents, but there was no racial difference in reporting nonsevere incidents. Additionally, for nonsevere incidents, Black victims were more likely than White victims to report hate crimes, but there was no racial difference in reporting nonhate crimes. Conclusions: Offense severity plays an important role in the victim decision-making process. These patterns are different, however, by race and for hate crime victims, suggesting that people perceive hate crimes as important to report, regardless of their severity. Public Significance StatementThis study links victims' decisions to notify the police to the broader context of race relations in the United States, finding that racial differences in reporting behavior vary according to differences in offense severity. The patterns we observed suggest the importance of encouraging the reporting of less severe victimization, while also indicating the need to engage with concerns regarding police legitimacy and the potential for poor treatment by police.

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“…Regarding residential violent crimes and violent crimes against minorities, fear of one’s significant other and a lack of trust in the police by racial minority groups may partially explain the shrinking—though still noticeable—seasonality around these crimes in LA. It has been well documented that minority communities in the U.S., at least in part, do not trust (and are therefore less likely to report) crimes to police (Zaykowski et al 2019 ). Additionally, minorities who have come to the U.S. illegally may hesitate to report crimes to the police for fear of deportation (Macias Jr 2019 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Crime in the new U.S. epicenter of COVID-19

Lee

Augusto

2022

Crime Prev Community Saf

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In the latter half of 2020, Los Angeles was dubbed by the media and academicians as the latest epicenter of COVID-19 in the United States. Using time-series analysis on Los Angeles Police Department crime data from 2017 through 2020, this paper tests the economic theory of crime, routine activities theory, social isolation theory, and structural vulnerability theory to determine whether they accurately predicted specific crime rate movements in the wake of COVID-19 in the city of Los Angeles. Economic theory of crime was supported by the data, and social isolation theory and structural vulnerability theory were partially supported. Routine activities theory was not supported. Implications for policymakers and academics are also discussed.

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Examining the Paradox of Crime Reporting: Are Disadvantaged Victims More Likely to Report to the Police?

Cited by 26 publications

References 103 publications

Racist Victimization, Legal Estrangement and Resentful Reliance on the Police in Sweden

Racist Victimization, Legal Estrangement and Resentful Reliance on the Police in Sweden

Severity matters: The moderating effect of offense severity in predicting racial differences in reporting of bias and nonbias victimization to the police.

Crime in the new U.S. epicenter of COVID-19

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