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Criminal Investigative Effort in Sexual Assaults: Findings from a Sample of Cases with Unsubmitted Sexual Assault Kits

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Abstract

According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, more than 125,000 sexual assaults were reported to the police annually from 2015 to 2018. The number of crimes reported represents a small portion of the sexual assault victims experience each year and significant numbers of cases that are reported “fall out” of the system at different decision points. This is known as case attrition, and research has established the importance of studying attrition. Studies that examine sexual assault case attrition and the legal system’s response have focused on key decision points, including police officers’ decision to found cases, arrest suspects, and prosecutors’ charging decisions. Few studies have examined specific investigative actions. Understanding these actions will help shed light on case attrition in the criminal-legal system. The current study utilized a sample of 493 sexual assault case files to measure the investigative actions taken in these cases. We quantified information-gathering activities from people and physical evidence and examined relationships between these activities and case characteristics. Police investigators attempted to contact victims at least once in a majority of cases, but no suspects were investigated in over half of cases. Case characteristics, including whether the victim provided a sworn statement and if they were perceived as cooperative, were associated with several investigative actions. Directions for future research are discussed.

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Notes

  1. Five investigators who were newly assigned to the HPD Sex Crimes Unit used a section of the data collection instrument to record information about victim credibility concerns from the sample of 493 cases. Specifically, the new investigators used the data collection tool and recorded information for each of the 14 victim credibility items for each case (for more information, see footnote 6). We compared the data recorded by the new investigators to the data recorded by retired investigators. The results show that across all 14 items and 493 cases, 92% of items were coded consistently. Consistency ranged from 84.2% for the “Other” category to 99.2% for “Parent/caregiver had ulterior motives” item.

  2. Many of the cases were missing some data on one or more variables. This is common in research using police case files since many investigators keep a working file separate from the official case file and do not always transfer the information from one file to the other (Hawk et al. 2020). We retained most of the cases with missing data so as not to lose valuable information. The three excluded cases were missing data on nearly all variables.

  3. Closed cases include those arrested and charged in the current case (11.5%) or another case (1.3%), lack of prosecution by the district attorney (6.6%), lack of prosecution by the victim (31.9%), and cleared by investigation (12.3%).

  4. Since the overwhelming majority of cases had only one victim and suspect, victim and suspect information presented refers to the primary victim/suspect.

  5. This determination was made by the retired police officers serving as data coders; they were asked, “Overall, did complainant #1 cooperate with the investigation?” and were instructed, “This question should be based on the totality of the contents of the report.”.

  6. Data coders were given a list of 14 possible credibility concerns and asked to record all that appeared in the report. The credibility concerns were (1) inconsistent story by the complainant, (2) patrol officer/investigator suspects complainant/outcry witness has ulterior motives for reporting, (3) evidence contradicts complainant story, (4) lack of witness corroboration, (5) complainant unable to verbalize/articulate details, (6) patrol officer/investigator believes complainant/outcry witness is fabricating the event, (7) complainant had a mental illness, (8) complainant was acting as a prostitute at the time of the offense, (9) complainant has a history of prostitution, (10) complainant was engaged in risky behavior at the time of the offense, (11) complainant did not attempt self-defense, (12) parent/caregiver had alternative motives for reporting, (13) emotional response is inconsistent for the event, and (14) other.

  7. This variable does not count sworn statements as a contact attempt since it was possible for victims to provide sworn statements without the investigator reaching out for one.

  8. Categories are not mutually exclusive and therefore sum to greater than 100%.

  9. Data coders were instructed to, “Record the number of suspects who were INVESTIGATED. This refers to the number of suspects a patrol officer or investigator “checked into” as a suspect in the crime. This is not limited to conducting a formal interview; it can entail running a background check or simply talking to someone about their possible involvement in the assault. This information should be obtained by reviewing the report and all supplements.”.

  10. This involved ranking the p-values from lowest to highest value and evaluating each in a step-down fashion on the basis of \(\propto / n\) where n is the number of the test. So, for example, the ranked H1 obtained a p-value of .000, which is less than \(\propto\) = .05/34 (equal to 0.001471). The same was true for the next four p-values (each .000), less than .05/33, .05/32, etc. The sixth ranked hypothesis had a p-value of .002, which was greater than .05/29 = .001724. We therefore fail to reject the null hypothesis for that and all tests that had a larger p-value.

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Funding

This study was funded by the National Institute of Justice (grant number 2011-DN-BX-0002).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. San Diego, California, USA

    Alicia L. Jurek

  2. Texas Forensic Nurse Examiners - The Forensic Center of Excellence, Houston, Texas, USA

    Shamika M. Kelley

  3. Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, Texas, USA

    William Wells

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  1. Alicia L. Jurek
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  2. Shamika M. Kelley
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  3. William Wells
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Correspondence to Alicia L. Jurek.

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Jurek, A.L., Kelley, S.M. & Wells, W. Criminal Investigative Effort in Sexual Assaults: Findings from a Sample of Cases with Unsubmitted Sexual Assault Kits. J Police Crim Psych 36, 652–666 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11896-021-09482-7

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