Reporting victimisation to the police: the role of racial dyad and bias motivation

ABSTRACT

Multiple theoretical perspectives suggest that the racial minorities may be less likely to report victimisation to law enforcement. Likewise, the literature on racially-motivated offenses highlights the importance of the victim’s race in whether the crime is reported. While both bodies of literature suggest that perception of racial bias may be a particularly salient factor in decisions to not report, they have been largely divorced from one another. Using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey, the present study extends the literature on reporting decisions by assessing whether the relationship between victim race, as well as different offender-victim racial dyads, varies by type of crime (hate crime v. non-hate crime). Furthermore, among incidents that are not reported to the police, the importance of attitudes toward police are explored descriptively. The results indicate that crimes against White victims are more likely to be reported if they are not motivated by racial animus, and non-hate crimes are more likely to be reported when the offender is Black. Perception of police bias is not a strong factor in the non-reporting of crimes. Implications of the research and directions for future investigation are discussed.