violent rather than property crimes, for completed than
attempted crimes, for crimes in which the victim suf-
fered more serious injury, for crimes that involved
greater loss of property, and for crimes that involved a
weapon.
Attitudes toward the police and the criminal justice
system are generally not strong predictors of the deci-
sion to report or not to report a crime, although there
is some evidence that satisfaction with how the police
acted in prior cases is related to the reporting of sub-
sequent victimizations. Moreover, although demo-
graphic characteristics are not strong predictors of
reporting, there are small but consistent findings that
females are more likely than males to report, espe-
cially violent crimes, and that older individuals are
more likely than younger individuals to report them.
In general, crimes against strangers are more likely
to be reported to the police than crimes against non-
strangers. Several reasons might account for this dif-
ference, including fear of retaliation from the known
offender, greater difficulty in determining whether the
event really was a crime, a belief that the victim might
be seen as partially responsible for the crime, and a
belief that events occurring between nonstrangers,
particularly intimates, are private matters.
Since the early 1990s, the rates of reported crime
have generally been increasing, most markedly with
regard to the reporting of sexual assault. This increase
in the reporting of sexual assault is the result, in part, of
statutory changes that make it easier for victims to
report (e.g., victim shield laws that protect victims’
identity in the media) and for district attorneys to pros-
ecute these cases (e.g., the elimination of the need for
corroborating evidence beyond the victim’s statement).
More generally, victims might be more likely to
report because of the increasing concern for victims
since the establishment of the President’s Task Force
on Victims of Crime in 1982. This report resulted in
statutes or constitutional amendments in all 50 states
that give victims the right to testify at criminal sen-
tencing and to be notified about other stages of the
criminal justice process (e.g., plea bargaining, parole
hearings). Other victim-related legislation includes
making restitution mandatory, making offenders pay
fines that go to a fund that provides compensation to
victims, establishing victim-witness-services offices
(generally within the district attorney’s office) that give
aid to victims, and providing funding for agencies that
specifically support victims of sexual assault and
domestic violence.Reasons for Reporting
or Not Reporting
According to the National Crime Victimization Survey,
a continuing survey of about 75,000 nationally repre-
sentative individuals who are interviewed biannually,
the most common reasons for reporting crimes are to
stop or prevent the specific reported crime, to recover
property, to prevent further crimes by the offender
against the victim, to prevent crime by the offender
against anyone, and because the event was a crime. The
most common reasons for not reporting a crime are
because it was reported to someone else, because it was
a private or personal matter, and because the offender
was unsuccessful. These reasons suggest that victims
use a cost-benefit analysis to determine whether to
report the crime.Process of Reporting
If a crime is to be reported to the police, then, based on a
model by Martin Greenberg and Barry Ruback, the vic-
tim must label the event a crime, determine that it is seri-
ous enough to report, and then decide that reporting the
crime to the police is the appropriate action to take. In
terms of the first stage—labeling the event a crime—in
most cases, the process is relatively straightforward. That
is, the person determines whether the event matches his
or her definition of what constitutes a crime (although
the victim’s definition may or may not be the same as the
legal definition of the crime). In some cases, the labeling
process is more complex. For example, with property
crime, individuals might decide that they had lost or mis-
placed an item rather than that the item had been stolen.
For violent crimes, the issue is generally not whether the
act occurred but whether the violent act is considered to
be a crime. For example, a wife who suffers a physical
beating from her husband may not define the event as a
crime if she is part of a culture that thinks it is appropri-
ate for men to beat their wives.
After the victim determines that an event is a crime,
he or she must determine the seriousness of the crime.
This determination of seriousness, which is important
because it is related to the amount of distress and
arousal the victim experiences, is based on how
unfairly treated and on how vulnerable to future crime
the victim feels. These two judgments are related to the
magnitude of the physical, material, and psychological
harms the victim experienced, the magnitude of the
harms that the victim could have experienced, and the686 ———Reporting Crimes and VictimizationR-Cutler (Encyc)-45463.qxd 11/18/2007 12:43 PM Page 686