Content area
Full text
This study examines the consequences of using self-protective behaviors in nonsexual assaults. Particular attention is paid to how victim sex modifies conclusions regarding the effectiveness of countermeasures as completion or injury avoidance strategies. These relationships are tested using 16,309 incidents of nonsexual assaults from the National Crime Victimization Survey. Several outcomes of violent encounters (i.e., completion, injury, injury severity) are regressed on measures of self-protective behaviors through a sequence of logistic regressions. Interactions between victim sex and self-protective behavior are also estimated. Forceful physical strategies are associated with a greater probability of assault completion and injury. Conversely, nonforceful verbal strategies serve as protective factors for both completion and injury and nonforceful physical strategies are associated with a lower probability of injury. Furthermore, there is some evidence that the effectiveness of these countermeasures varies by the sex of the victim.
Keywords: self-protective behaviors; injury; resistance; assaults
Self-protective behaviors are strategies that victims use during the course of a violent encounter to either prevent its completion or to avoid or minimize physical injury.1 Although there is a fairly rich body of literature on self-protective behaviors and rape and/or robbery completion and injury, very little attention has been given to the impact of resistance in physical assaults (i.e., aggravated and simple assaults) that are not sexual in nature or motivated by monetary gain (i.e., nonsexual assaults). This distinction between types of victimization is important for several reasons. First, nonsexual assaults are the most common form of violent victimization. In 2010, the rate of self-reported nonsexual assaults was 12.3 compared to 1.9 for robbery and 0.7 per 1,000 persons for sexual assault (Truman, 2011). Second, the frequency of resistance varies as a function of the type of victimization (Hindelang, 1976). For example, self-protective behaviors are used infrequently in robbery (e.g., 40% in Wolfgang, 1982) compared to physical assaults, where self-protective behaviors are consistently reported in most incidents (e.g., Thompson, Simon, Saltzman, & Mercy, 1999). Third, these types of victimization feature different dynamics (e.g., prior history of grievances, patterns of relational distance, etc.) that may influence the choice and outcome of resistance. Methodologically, the focus on sexual assault has resulted in a body of research that is limited to female victims.
In part, because very few studies have examined...