Law enforcement agencies are always looking for new ways to reduce crime in their cities, but a new study suggests that crime victims can reduce their likelihood of once again being victimized by reporting the initial crime.
Researchers out of the University of Iowa conducted a recent study which uncovered that people who report being victims of certain crimes to police are less likely to become future victims of crime than those individuals who did not report their initial experience.
For their study, researchers at UI examined a nationwide cohort of more than 18,000 people between 2008 and 2012 who were victims of interpersonal crimes, like robbery, threatened assault, threatened rape and sexual assault, and property crimes like theft and burglary. Here’s what they found:
- Overall, people who filed police reports about their initial experience were 22 percent less likely to experience repeat victimization.
- Crimes of interpersonal violence victimizations were 20 percent lower, and future thefts were 27 percent lower.
- Future burglaries did not decline when reported to police.
- Although they don’t have any tangible evidence to support the following conclusion, researchers believe the lower overall rate of future victimization may be attributed to increased victim awareness, increased police action, and other services victims receive after reporting their initial experience.
“We know that the role of police in society is to provide safety, and clearly we see that they are succeeding in this role,” said Shabbar I. Ranapurwala, lead author of the study and postdoctoral research scholar at the UI Injury Prevention Research Center. “However, they cannot be successful without cooperation from the victims and community. That’s why it is important to report the victimizations to police.”
Many Crimes Not Reported
The findings are interesting, especially when you consider that more than half of all violent victimizations are not reported to police. According to national estimates, roughly 54 percent of violent victimizations are not reported to authorities. In the population used for the study, 59 percent of crime victims did not report their initial victimization to police.
Females (41.8%) were more likely to report their initial crime to police than males (39.9%). African Americans (44.2%) were more likely to report initial crime to police than non-Hispanics (41.6%), than whites (40.6%) and Hispanics (36.7%). The most common reasons people didn’t report their initial crime is because they feared repercussions or because they didn’t think the crime was serious enough to warrant reporting.
“When victimizations are not reported to the police, this creates significant inaccuracies or errors in crime-rate estimates generated from official law enforcement data,” said Mark Berg, associate professor in the UI Department of Sociology, who worked on the study. “Victim non-reporting, therefore, has significant consequences for policy. For instance, the annual allocation of crime-control resources is partly determined by variations in serious crime rates, information that is based on official data sources.”
Researchers concluded that better understanding of how reporting to police affects future victimization could help law enforcement and other government agencies better engage with victims, especially minorities. This engagement can also connect victims with certain services that can help them manage their emotional and physical health, or find them legal services, after their initial victimization.
