Where and when? Examining spatiotemporal aspects of sexual assault events

Abstract

This research investigates the where and when of sexual assaults to determine what types of sexual crimes are committed at different time and place classifications. Exhaustive CHAID (chi-squared automatic interaction detection) analyses are conducted, examining factors associated with crimes that were committed indoors or outdoors, in private or public places, during the day or at night, and during the week or on the weekend. These methods are applied to a sample of 361 sexual crime events committed by 72 serial sex offenders. The results are strikingly different dependent on which spatial or temporal aspect of the crime is examined, which implies the complexity of sexual crime events and their situational components. This research brings to light possible policy implications with respect to situational crime prevention.

Keywords:

• CHAID
• serial sex offending
• situational crime prevention
• spatial
• temporal
• time and place

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Notes

1. As part of the semi-structured interview, the researcher would ask the offender to describe how the crime was committed as an open-ended question. Then, after taking notes on the answers provided by the offender, follow-up questions would be asked to get to specific details. For example: “Did you use a weapon? If yes, why? If not, then why not?”. Another example is related to the sexual acts committed between the offender and the victim. The researcher would ask the offender to describe the sexual acts that were committed during the sexual assault. Then, after noting all the details provided by the offender, subsequent questions could follow in order to gain more details on the sexual acts committed. For instance, “did you penetrate the victim with your penis?”.

2. Inmates were told, however, that, if they disclosed impending harm to themselves or others, the proper authorities would be notified.

3. Both the week/weekend and inside/outside variables have been examined under similar dichotomies in previous spatiotemporal sex offender literature (Canter & Gregory, 1994).

4. Each exhaustive CHAID model included all 361 sexual crimes.

5. References to “date rape” within the discussion of the results do not refer to date rape within any perceivable relationship (as all of the victims were strangers to the offender prior to the day of the assault) but, rather, an encounter that begins as consensual, perhaps flirtatious behaviour, but then changes into aggressive, assaultive behaviour when the victim tries to stop or slow down the offender's physical advances.

6. Rohypnol™ (clinical name: Flunitrazepam) is a sedative–hypnotic benzodiazepine that causes profound sedation and memory loss as well as reducing the will to resist sexual advances (Schwartz & Weaver, 1998). It is commonly referred to as the “date rape drug”.