Victims of sexual assault perpetrated by female youth: an exploratory study of gender differences^*

* The views and opinions of this research do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Department of Justice or any component therein.

ABSTRACT

This study examines sexual offending behaviour of juvenile females and juvenile males who come to the attention of the police. Using victim age as an analytical tool and more than 20 years of incident-level crime data, perpetrator, victim, and offense characteristics are compared to assess if the offending behaviours of juvenile females and juvenile males differ when the victim is a child versus a peer. The multinomial logistic regression showed there were differences in offending between juvenile females and juvenile males dependent on type of victim. Perpetrator substance abuse, victim sex, victim-offender relationship, type of sexual assault, use of force, location of the sexual assault, the time of day of the sexual assault, and whether or not the incident resulted in an arrest all reliably predicted these differences. The results reinforce the field's call for a greater development of a gendered understanding of sexual offending behaviour.

KEYWORDS:

• Females
• juveniles
• national incident-based reporting system
• sex offending
• victims

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

* The views and opinions of this research do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Department of Justice or any component therein.

1. The victim injury variable is based on the perception of law enforcement responding to the scene. Minor injuries must be apparent to the officer and could include scrapes or visible bruising to the victim. Major injuries to the victim include injuries such as severe lacerations, broken bones, loss of teeth, unconsciouness, and any other apparent major injury.

2. Results available upon request.

3. Please see Appendix A for abbreviated MNLM results.