Is It a Crime? Cyberstalking Victims’ Reasons for Not Reporting to Law Enforcement

Erica R. Fissel ()
Additional contact information
Erica R. Fissel: Department of Criminal Justice, College of Community Innovation and Education, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816, USA

Social Sciences, 2023, vol. 12, issue 12, 1-12

Abstract: Using a sample of 376 young adults (18- to 25-year-olds) who had been cyberstalked in the previous 12 months, the current study attempts to (1) understand the self-identified reasons behind cyberstalking victims’ choice to not report their experiences to law enforcement and (2) determine if there are gender or racial differences associated with the reasons for not reporting. Findings revealed that approximately 86% of cyberstalking victims did not personally report their victimization to law enforcement. The most common reasons for not reporting included not knowing their experience was criminal in nature (53.99%), dealing with it another way (42.82%), and thinking the police would not do anything for them (32.98%) or would not be helpful (31.91%). Analyses also revealed that there were gender-specific differences in one of the reasons for not reporting. Women and another gender identity selected “Thought the police would not do anything” significantly more than men. Implications for these findings are provided.

Keywords: cyberstalking; victims; reporting; gender; race (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/12/659/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/12/12/659/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:12:y:2023:i:12:p:659-:d:1289745

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().