Unfounding the ideal victim: Does Christie’s ideal victim explain police response to intimate partner sexual assault?

ABSTRACT

Nils Christie’s (1986) ideal victim is said to receive “complete and legitimate status as a victim.” Many victims of intimate partner sexual assault (IPSA), are not given this status, resulting in their cases being unfounded. The current study evaluates 16 years of reported IPSA cases (n = 1,558) in a large municipal police department in the midwestern United States. Through multivariate logistic regression this study evaluates which factors lead a reported IPSA case to be unfounded. Further, it examines how the IPSA victim fits into the concept of the ideal victim. The results indicate that several variables representing the ideal victim criteria are influence in unfounding IPSA cases; however, many are the opposite of what might be expected based on Christie’s work. Results further indicate that race (victim race, detective race, racial composition of district) has a substantial impact on IPSA cases being unfounded.