Perceptions of Sexual Violence Terms Used in Statutes Throughout the United States.

The terminology used to describe sexually violent offenses vary, and how these labels are interpreted by the public remains unclear. This study explores the terms for the primary-legally most severe-offense of sexual violence in legal statutes across the United States and investigates how different terms evoke different perceptions about crime severity. Results indicate that nine different terms are used to identify the primary offense of sexual violence in state statutes, with significant differences in perceived severity for these terms.

But Someone Was Right There: An Examination of How Third-Party Presence Is Associated With Rape and Sexual Assault Victim Help-Seeking Behavior and Reports to Police.

This research evaluates whether third-party presence is associated with rape and sexual assault (RSA) victims help-seeking and reporting to police, addressing a gap in the literature about how the presence of a third-party is associated with victim behavior. This research uses secondary data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Findings indicate that third-party presence has no statistically significant association with help-seeking and marginal significance with police reporting.

Twenty-Five Years of Research and Advocacy on Violence Against Women: What Have We Accomplished, and Where Do We Go From Here? A Conversation.

This article is a conversation between two academic experts, Callie Rennison and Nikki Jones, who endeavor to sum up what has been accomplished in eliminating violence against women in the United States during the 25 years of the journal's existence. Domestic violence, rape, and sexual harassment are discussed. Although prevalence rates are down in domestic violence, rape and sexual harassment remain persistent problems.

Comparing Violent Victimization Experiences of Male and Female College-Attending Emerging Adults.

Despite increased attention to college student victimization, gaps remain. In particular, relatively little is known about violence against males and females outside sexual and intimate partner violence. This study uses data from the National Crime Victimization Survey to compare male and female students' violent victimization overall as well as relational and sexual violence.

The Influence of Adult Role Statuses on Violent Victimization Reporting.

Drawing on data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, this article extends on the contributions from developmental and life course criminologists by investigating the relationship between adult role status and police notification. Our findings point to the important gender differences. Age and reporting are curvilinearly related among female victims but linearly related among males.

Victim Injury and Social Distance: A National Test of a General Principle of Conflict.

Our inquiry focuses on why some violent offenses but not others result in injury to the victim. Building on existing theory nested in the paradigm of pure sociology, we propose and test a general principle of conflict: Victim injury varies directly with social distance. This principle predicts that offenders are more likely to harm victims with whom they are less well acquainted and less similar culturally.

Violence Against College Women: A Review to Identify Limitations in Defining the Problem and Inform Future Research.

Over the past 25 years, our understanding about violence against college women has greatly expanded, but it has been concentrated in particular areas. As a result, despite this increased attention, significant gaps in our knowledge still exist. One is a failure to take stock in how "violence" is defined and assess whether its current use adequately covers the variety of risks to which college women are exposed.

Intimate relationship status variations in violence against women: urban, suburban, and rural differences.

Woman abuse varies across intimate relationship categories (e.g., marriage, divorce, separation).

Reflexive retaliation for violent victimization: the effect of social distance on weapon lethality.

During the course of being victimized, why do people sometimes fight back with their fists; in other cases, with a knife or blunt object; and at other times, with a firearm? One theory is that the weapons involved in self-defense, also known as reflexive retaliation, become less lethal as offenders and victims become more intimate and alike culturally. Using National Crime Victimization Survey data, we test hypotheses derived from this theory and primarily find support. This article concludes by discussing implications for future work.

Social distance and immediate informal responses to violent victimization.

There are a number of ways that victims of violence informally handle attacks as they unfold. Their responses range in severity from physical resistance, to talking it out with the offender, to running away, to cooperating. Why do victims respond in a more or less severe manner? Cooney (2009) suggests that social distance is part of the answer: the further the relational or cultural distance between offender and victim, the more severe the latter's response.

The influence of childhood maltreatment and self-control on dating violence: a comparison of college students in the United States and South Korea.

Various aspects of social learning and self-control theories have been applied to partner violence among multiple samples in the United States, but these theoretical approaches have been less commonly studied cross-culturally. Consequently, childhood maltreatment and low self-control have been identified as risk factors for various outcomes in primarily American samples. This study examined the relationships between childhood maltreatment, low self-control, and dating violence among college students in South Korea and the United States.

Reporting to the police by Hispanic victims of violence.

Though reporting violence to the police has been extensively investigated, the nature of Hispanic reporting of victimization has not. This is surprising because Hispanics are the fastest growing and largest ethnic group in the United States. Using over a decade of data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, this article investigates Hispanic reporting of victimization relative to non-Hispanic Whites, Blacks, American Indians, and Asians.

Reassessing who contributed most to the decline in violence during the 1990s: a reminder that size does matter.

Descriptions of the 1990s crime drop point to the importance of declines in firearm violence among young, Black, urban males. This extant research is valuable but incomplete in terms of the crimes considered and the degree of disaggregation considered. This study complements current work on fatal violence by providing a comprehensive description of nonfatal violence trends using highly disaggregated data from the National Crime Victimization Survey.