Arrest and Referral Decisions in Sexual Assault Cases: The Influence of Police Discretion on Case Attrition

Ericka Wentz and Kelsey Keimig
Additional contact information
Ericka Wentz: Department of Criminology, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA 30118, USA
Kelsey Keimig: Department of Criminal Justice and Political Science, North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND 58108, USA

Social Sciences, 2019, vol. 8, issue 6, 1-13

Abstract: Research on sexual assault case attrition spans from the decision of victims to report the incidents and cooperate with police during investigations through the final case disposition in the courtroom. However, few studies have focused on how police discretion influences attrition at the points of arrest and case referral. The current study examines factors of adult sexual assaults reported to the police to determine which legal and extralegal factors were predictive of arrest and which variables were predictive of police decisions to refer cases to prosecutors for consideration. The results of this study showed victim cooperation and evidence significantly predicted arrest and referral, along with variables which measured the seriousness of the case and victim credibility. The findings confirmed both legally relevant and extralegal variables were important considerations during each decision-making point. Implications arising from these results are discussed.

Keywords: sexual assault; police discretion; arrest decisions; case referral decisions (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/6/180/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/8/6/180/ (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:8:y:2019:i:6:p:180-:d:238720

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 ().