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Who Called the Cops?: Decisions To Report Criminal Victimization

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Richard O. Hawkins
Richard O. Hawkins*
Affiliation:
Southern Methodist University
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An important intersection of the disciplines of law and social science is the social setting of law enforcement. The point of application of the law is almost completely social, with the exception of the totally automated justice of parking violations (Skolnick, 1966). The social factors in the enforcement encounter which produce the official definition of crime have been discussed in studies of police discretion (Skolnick, 1966; Cicourel, 1968), police/suspect interaction (Piliavin and Briar, 1964; Wertham and Piliavin, 1967; Black and Reiss, 1970), and the influence of complainants' wishes and demeanor on police action (Black, 1970). A second social setting that greatly influences the extent of law enforcement and the resultant official crime rate is the setting of victimization. This setting occurs prior to the enforcement encounter and is quite distinct from it except in cases of police observation of crime. The setting of victimization has received relatively little research attention. Questions pertaining to the perception of victimization and the subsequent decision by the victim on ways to handle the situation have not been systematically addressed. The goal of this study is to decribe why, and under what conditions, victims decide to invoke formal sanctioning procedures in response to criminal victimization.

Type
Research Article
Information
Law & Society Review , Volume 7 , Issue 3 , Spring 1973 , pp. 427 - 444
Copyright
Copyright © The Law and Society Association, 1972.

Footnotes

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This study was made possible by NIMH, Grant Number 1 R01 MH14644-01 SSR. This is a revision of a paper presented at the Deviance Section of the Southwestern Sociological Association meeting in Dallas, Texas, March 25, 1971.

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