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Article
The Situational Context of Police Sexual Violence: Data and Policy Implications
Family & Intimate Partner Violence Quarterly
  • Philip M. Stinson, Bowling Green State University
  • Robert W. Taylor, University of Texas Dallas
  • John Liederbach, Bowling Green State University
Document Type
Article
Abstract

The horrors of sexual crimes perpetrated by law enforcement officers are laid bare in this study of 669 cases of police sexual violence. Here, authors Philip Matthew Stinson, Robert W. Taylor, and John Liederbach identify three scenarios in which law enforcement officers inflict sexual violence upon their mostly-female victims: 1) “driving while female,” 2) child predation, and 3) involvement in the sex worker industry. Especially sobering is the fact that, as opposed to law enforcement doing its solemn duty to report criminality on the part of fellow police officers, “citizens rather than police initiated the detection of the crimes in almost all the cases, whether the context involved child predation (94.8%), driving while female (94.7%), or the sex worker industry (90.8%).” Rather than an anomaly, sexual predation on the part of police, along with the routine cover-ups that perpetuate these crimes, appears to be just one component of the “rotten barrel” that depicts a culture of police corruption.

Publisher's Statement
Support for this project was provided by the Wallace Action Fund of Tides Foundation. This research was also supported in part by the Center for Family and Demographic Research, Bowling Green State University, which has core funding from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (P2CHD050959).
Publication Date
9-1-2020
Publisher
Civic Research Institute
Volume
12
Issue
4
Citation Information
Philip M. Stinson, Robert W. Taylor and John Liederbach. "The Situational Context of Police Sexual Violence: Data and Policy Implications" Family & Intimate Partner Violence Quarterly (2020) p. 59 - 68
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/john-liederbach/40/