Reporting Sexual Assault to the Police in Honolulu, Hawaii, 1987-1992 (ICPSR 3051)
Version Date: Nov 4, 2005 View help for published
Principal Investigator(s): View help for Principal Investigator(s)
Libby O. Ruch, University of Hawaii at Manoa
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03051.v1
Version V1
Summary View help for Summary
This study was undertaken to investigate factors facilitating and hindering a victim's decision to report a sexual assault to the police. Further objectives were to use the findings to assist in the design of effective intervention methods by sexual assault treatment centers and community education projects, and to present significant findings useful for community policing and other criminal justice initiatives. Survey data for this study were collected from female victims of nonincestuous sexual assault incidents who were at least 14 years of age and sought treatment (within one year of being assaulted) from the Sex Abuse Treatment Center (SATC) in Honolulu, Hawaii, during 1987-1992. Data were collected on two types of victims: (1) immediate treatment seekers, who sought treatment within 72 hours of an assault incident, and (2) delayed treatment seekers, who sought treatment 72 hours or longer after an assault incident. Demographic variables for the victims include age at the time of the assault, marital status, employment status, educational level, and race and ethnicity. Other variables include where the attack took place, the victim's relationship to the assailant, the number of assailants, and whether the assailant(s) used threats, force, or a weapon, or injured or drugged the victim. Additional variables cover whether the victim attempted to get away, resisted physically, yelled, and/or reported the incident to the police, how the victim learned about the Sex Abuse Treatment Center, whether the victim was a tourist, in the military, or a resident of the island, the number of days between the assault and the interview, and a self-reported trauma Sexual Assault Symptom Scale measure.
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Subject Terms View help for Subject Terms
Geographic Coverage View help for Geographic Coverage
Distributor(s) View help for Distributor(s)
Time Period(s) View help for Time Period(s)
Date of Collection View help for Date of Collection
Study Purpose View help for Study Purpose
Victimization surveys of both the general population and various special populations (e.g., college students and children) have for many years documented a relatively high incidence and prevalence of sexual assault. Many victims, however, do not report sexual assaults to the police. Underreporting of sexual assault to the police is important because of its negative impact on the potential apprehension, arrest, and conviction of violent sex offenders. It may also bias comparisons of sexual assault cases with other criminal offenses. Although previous research has shown that a number of variables influence whether a victim reports an abuse incident, such as the type of sexual assault, the victim's demographic characteristics, and the level of post-assault trauma, there have been conflicting findings as to which specific variables within these dimensions are most important. This study was undertaken to investigate factors facilitating and hindering a victim's decision to report a sexual assault to the police. Further objectives were to use the findings to assist in the design of effective intervention methods by sexual assault treatment centers and community education projects, and to present significant findings useful for community policing and other criminal justice initiatives.
Study Design View help for Study Design
Data for this study were collected from female victims at least 14 years of age who sought treatment (within one year of being assaulted) from the Sex Abuse Treatment Center (SATC) in Honolulu, Hawaii, during 1987-1992. The SATC, at the time of data collection, was the sole treatment center providing comprehensive services to sexual assault victims on the island of Oahu, where the city of Honolulu, the state capital and most densely populated urban area, is located. Data were collected on two types of victims: (1) immediate treatment seekers (ITS victims) and (2) delayed treatment seekers (DTS victims). ITS victims were those who sought treatment within 72 hours of an assault, and DTS victims were those who sought treatment 72 hours or longer after an assault. The ITS subsample were interviewed using the SATC emergency room intake form, which was a structured self-report instrument administered by an SATC staff social worker when intake occurred during office hours, or by a member of the crisis intervention team on call during evenings, weekends, and holidays. The DTS subsample were interviewed using a general counseling form administered by an SATC social worker during the initial counseling session.
Sample View help for Sample
Convenience sampling.
Universe View help for Universe
Female victims of nonincestuous sexual assaults living in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Unit(s) of Observation View help for Unit(s) of Observation
Data Source View help for Data Source
personal interviews
Data Type(s) View help for Data Type(s)
Description of Variables View help for Description of Variables
Demographic variables for the victims include age at the time of the assault, marital status, employment status, educational level, and race and ethnicity. Other variables include where the attack took place, the victim's relationship to the assailant, the number of assailants, and whether the assailant(s) used threats, force, or a weapon, or injured or drugged the victim. Additional variables cover whether the victim attempted to get away, resisted physically, yelled, and/or reported the incident to the police, how the victim learned about the Sex Abuse Treatment Center, whether the victim was a tourist, in the military, or a resident of the island, the number of days between the assault and the interview, and a self-reported trauma Sexual Assault Symptom Scale measure.
Response Rates View help for Response Rates
Unknown.
Presence of Common Scales View help for Presence of Common Scales
Self-reported trauma was measured with the Sexual Assault Symptom Scale, a 32-item instrument measuring psychological distress.
HideOriginal Release Date View help for Original Release Date
2000-12-04
Version History View help for Version History
- Ruch, Libby O. Reporting Sexual Assault to the Police in Honolulu, Hawaii, 1987-1992. ICPSR03051-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2000. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR03051.v1
2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable, and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to reflect these additions.
2000-12-04 ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
- Standardized missing values.
- Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.
Notes
The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public. Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.
This dataset is maintained and distributed by the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD), the criminal justice archive within ICPSR. NACJD is primarily sponsored by three agencies within the U.S. Department of Justice: the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the National Institute of Justice, and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.