College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

Spring 6-13-2025

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Megan Greeson, PhD

Second Advisor

Molly Brown, PhD

Third Advisor

Jocelyn Carter, PhD

Abstract

Police officers play an important role for sexual assault survivors seeking help from the criminal legal system in the United States. One of their main responsibilities is to investigate the crime to determine if there is enough evidence to arrest a suspect. Previous literature has documented police arrest decisions in sexual assault cases are influenced by legal and extralegal factors—factors that are legally relevant (e.g., presence of DNA evidence) and irrelevant (e.g., victim race) in a case. These factors span multiple levels of analysis, namely the incident (e.g., whether a weapon was used) and police department (e.g., % of woman officers). Community-level factors may also influence police arrest decisions; however, this has not been explored. Using a two-level logistic regression, the present study examined the relationship between incident-, department-, and community-level factors and police arrest decisions. Data were extracted from three publicly available data sources from 2020: the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS), and the U.S. Census Bureau. Cases that were exceptionally cleared, included victims under age 18, involved multiple suspects, and took place in communities with more than one police department (e.g., sheriff departments) were excluded. A total of n = 16,718 sexual assault cases from n = 741 police departments and n = 741 communities were examined. Results show cases with victims who were Hispanic, suspects who were Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander (compared to White), suspects who were White (compared to unknown race), victims and suspects who were strangers (compared to intimate partners), victim and suspects who were strangers (compared to otherwise known—e.g., acquaintance, friend), female victims/male suspect dyads, victims who were injured, cases with a weapon (other than firearm or knife), and cases that were attempted rather than completed were more likely to result in arrest. After controlling for incident-level differences, cases located in departments with larger budgets and smaller crime loads were more likely to result in arrest. Finally, after controlling for incident-level differences, cases located in the Northeast relative to the South, cases located in plurality White communities relative to plurality American Indian communities, and cases located in predominately non-Hispanic communities were more likely to result in arrest. Overall, these findings indicate legal and extralegal factors continue to influence police arrest decisions and demonstrate the importance of examining police arrest decisions from a multilevel perspective.

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