Neutralizing sexual victimization: A typology of victims’ non-reporting accounts

Abstract

Drawing its examples from National Crime Victimization Survey narratives, this article proposes a theoretical framework for elucidating victims’ non-reporting accounts, the rationales that victims use to justify why they do not report sexual victimization to police. The framework delineates four account types—denying criminal intent, denying serious injury, denying victim innocence, and rejecting a victim identity—that each problematize one or more critical elements of real and reportable crime. By delineating victims’ accounts of unwanted sexual incidents, along with each account’s distinct neutralization strategies, non-reporting rationales, and cognitive benefits, this article contributes theoretically to discourses on unreported and unacknowledged rape, as well as to a broader literature on non-reported crime.