Title:
Police follow-up and well-being of sexual assault survivors: emotional, interpersonal, academic, and occupational outcomes
Author:
Katherine A. DeBroeck
Thesis Advisor:
Marianna E. Carlucci
Committee Member:
Michiko Iwasaki
Committee Member:
Frank D. Golom
Committee Member:
Jason M. Prenoveau
Degree Granting Institution:
Loyola University Maryland--College of Arts and Sciences
Place:
Baltimore (Md.)
Publisher:
Loyola University Maryland
Date Created:
2024
Type of Resource:
text
Genre:
thesis
Language:
eng
Format:
application/pdf
Physical Form:
electronic
Digital Source:
born digital
Abstract:
Over 50 million women in the U.S. have been sexually assaulted in their lifetime, which suggests that sexual assault is an immediate public safety concern (Division of Violence Prevention [DVP], 2014; Smith et al., 2018). Because such incidences are traumatic, many sexual assault survivors experience negative emotional (e.g., 71% report moderate to severe distress; BJS, 2014b), interpersonal (e.g., 37% report family and friendship concerns; BJS, 2014b), academic (e.g., lower college GPA for sexual assault survivors; Baker et al., 2016) and occupational (e.g., loss of employment; Loya, 2014) outcomes. Given that sexual assault represents an urgent public safety concern with far-reaching consequences for survivors, the involvement of the criminal justice system in these cases warrants examination. Police involvement represents the first step of this official criminal justice process in incidences of sexual assault. Police departments are notified of only 36% of sexual assaults, and promise to continue their investigation in only 13% of the cases that are reported to them (BJS, 2016). Some sexual assault survivors have a positive experience with police follow-up when it occurs (e.g., Greeson, Campbell, and Fehler-Cabral, 2014; Institute on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault [IDVSA], 2015b). However, the infrequency of police follow-up can feel hurtful or otherwise be a negative experience for survivors when it occurs (e.g., Archambault and Lonsway, 2019; Greeson and Campbell, 2011; IDVSA, 2015b; Sulley et al., 2021). Given that the occurrence of police follow-up involves various emotional sequalae for survivors, it may be that other outcomes for sexual assault survivors change depending on the presence or absence of police follow-up. However, no research exists yet exploring this possibility. The present study examined hypotheses that the presence of police follow-up would relate to a difference in the level or occurrence of negative outcomes for survivors. To test these hypotheses, the present research employed a correlational method using archival concatenated incident-level data from the nationwide National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) developed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS; BJS, n.d.). The sample consists of 159 female sexual assault survivors who reported their assault to police between 2009-2015. Results from a t-test and chi square tests for independence did not support the hypotheses. Context from existing literature suggests that there may be moderating variables (e.g., quality of initial police interactions, quality of police follow-up, social reactions to police involvement), not measured in this study, which would help explain the null results. In addition, existing quantitative measures of sexual assault survivor outcomes and police follow-up have significant weaknesses, including production of dichotomous variables and reliance on too few items to assess a construct. Future research should evaluate potential moderating variables, in addition to utilizing more nuanced measures so that more nuanced information can be gathered on survivors’ experiences with police follow-up.
Subject:
Academic theses
Subject:
Electronic dissertations
Subject:
Thèses et écrits académiques
Subject:
Thèses électroniques
Subject:
dissertations
Degree:
Doctor of Clinical Psychology
Level:
Doctoral
Discipline:
Psychology
Restrictions on Access:
Author has given permission to make this work available online.
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Identifier:
DeBroeckKD-24
