Justice Perceptions, Sexual Identity, and Race: Likelihood of Police Reporting Intentions Following Sexual Assault

• Published date: 01 July 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00938548241227546
• Author: Elizabeth Culatta,Kaitlin M. Boyle,Sophia Shaiman,Tara E. Sutton
• Date: 01 July 2024
• Subject Matter: Articles

CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND BEHAVIOR, 2024, Vol. 51, No. 7, July 2024, 1112 –1136.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/00938548241227546

Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions

© 2024 International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology

1112

JUSTICE PERCEPTIONS, SEXUAL IDENTITY,

AND RACE

Likelihood of Police Reporting Intentions Following

Sexual Assault

ELIZABETH CULATTA

Augusta University

KAITLIN M. BOYLE

SOPHIA SHAIMAN

University of South Carolina

TARA E. SUTTON

Mississippi State University

Perceptions of law enforcement shape a willingness to report crime and are particularly important for sex crimes and among

groups oppressed or neglected by the legal system. We examine three types of perceptions of justice—the fairness of outcomes

(distributive), procedures (procedural), and victim treatment (interpersonal). We expect each measure of justice perceptions to

increase the likelihood of reporting, or recommending a friend report, a hypothetical sexual assault to police. Our survey of 18-

to 24-year-old women (N = 1,414) oversampled women of color and stratified the sample by educational attainment. In a series

of path analyses, we find full support for our hypotheses about reporting one’s own sexual assault and partial support for encour-

aging a friend to report based on perceptions of three forms of justice. In addition, we examined indirect effects of sexual

identity and race on reporting intentions and discuss how those patterns are partially driven by negative perceptions of justice.

Keywords: perceptions; procedural justice; quantitative methods; race; sexual assault; theory; victimization; violence

against women

INTRODUCTION

Although a common source of victimization, there is compelling evidence that suggests

sexual crimes are even more underreported than other crimes (Morgan & Truman, 2020;

Stanek et al., 2023). Reasons for, and consequences of, decisions to report sexual assault to

AUTHORS’ NOTE: We have no known conflict of interest to disclose. The authors would like to acknowledge

Virginia Tech’s Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention, Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and

Human Science, Augusta University’s Research, Scholarship & Creative Activity (RSCA) Grant, and the

University of South Carolina Department of Women’s and Gender Studies for funding and supporting this

research. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Kaitlin M. Boyle, Department of

Criminology and Criminal Justice, Currell College, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208;

e-mail: kb49@mailbox.sc.edu.

1227546CJBXXX10.1177/00938548241227546Criminal Justice and BehaviorCulatta et al. / Justice Perceptions and Reporting Rape

research-article2024

Culatta et al. / JUSTICE PERCEPTIONS AND REPORTING RAPE 1113

law enforcement are far-reaching. Some reasons not to report are external and based on situ-

ational details, such as cultural rape myths that inaccurately suggest that “real” sexual assault

involves a violent stranger and vaginal penetration (Du Mont et al., 2003; Hahn et al., 2020;

Holmes & Delia Deckard, 2019; Lonsway & Fitzgerald, 1994). Other reasons are internal,

based on victims’ feelings of shame or self-blame and fear of public scrutiny (Caron &

Mitchell, 2022; Weiss, 2010), with research indicating that receiving negative social reac-

tions to sexual assault disclosure can increase psychological distress (Hakimi et al., 2018).

Furthermore, some women choose not to report to police based on their perceptions of the

justice system, including concerns of police mistreatment (Fisher et al., 2000; Lorenz 2023),

previous or vicarious negative experiences with police (Lorenz et al., 2021), and fear that the

justice system would be unwilling or unable to help them (Patterson et al., 2009; Planty &

Krebs, 2013). For women who choose to report, these survivors are at risk of experiencing

secondary victimization, such as being blamed by police for their assault (Campbell, 2008;

Laxminarayan, 2013), and face discouraging odds of their efforts resulting in a conviction

(Lonsway & Archambault, 2012). Ultimately, the decision to report sexual victimization is

highly complex, as are the outcomes associated with doing so. Reporting is shaped by real-

istic concerns about the legal system, including scholars who question what the “conven-

tional, linear, dichotomous, and incident-based approach” to the criminal justice system can

offer to victim-survivors (see McGlynn & Westmarland, 2019 for a discussion of “kaleido-

scopic justice”). Still, research does indicate some positive outcomes of reporting sexual

assault to police, especially if responses are supportive (e.g., Ahrens et al., 2010; Caron &

Mitchell, 2022; Dworkin et al., 2017; Franklin & Garza, 2021).

Justice is socially constructed—what is perceived to be fair is derived from an individu-

al’s understanding of the situation (Colquitt et al., 2001). Justice occurs when a person is

treated fairly, which can be defined using different standards. Injustice occurs when people

feel that the benefits they receive are not what they expected or “fall short of what they felt

they deserved” (Hegtvedt & Markovsky, 1995, p. 257). The field of justice theory delin-

eates multiple dimensions of justice by which a situation can be perceived as fair. Distributive

justice focuses on the fairness of the outcomes, procedural justice examines the procedures

used to make a decision or distribution, and interpersonal justice emphasizes how a person

is treated during the process. While there is some overlap between the forms of justice,

especially between procedural justice and interpersonal justice (Tyler & Bies, 1990), these

can be considered into three distinct forms of evaluating the fairness of a system or situation

(Ambrose & Arnaud, 2013).

Although there has been research on the relationship between perceptions of procedural

and distributive justice on victims’ willingness to report domestic violence (Calton & Cattaneo,

2014; Hickman & Simpson, 2003) and sexual assault among college students (Henry et al.,

2021; Stanek et al., 2023), there is a gap in the literature regarding how all three dimensions

of justice might influence intentions to report sexual assault to the police more generally. In

the first research question of this study we ask, how do negative perceptions of outcomes,

procedures, and treatment of victims shape intentions of and recommendations to report sex-

ual assault to police? If we better understand the influences on someone’s intention to report,

we can better understand barriers to actual reporting behavior following sexual assault.

Research also suggests that personal characteristics, like one’s sexual identity or race,

shape whether or not people report or disclose crimes to police (Decker et al., 2019; Edwards

et al., 2022). Previous work demonstrates that queer women experience both greater risk of