Fighting Fire With Fire: The Effects of Victim Resistance in Intimate Versus Stranger Perpetrated Assaults Against Females (From Victims of Crime and the Victimization Process, P 1-15, 1997, Marilyn McShane and Frank P. Williams, III, eds. - See NCJ-171054)

• NCJ Number: 171054
• Author(s): R Bachman; D C Carmody
• Date Published: 1997
• Length: 15 pages
• Sale Source: Garland Publishing, Inc.
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS. Reprinted from Journal of Family Violence, V 9, N 4 (1994), P 317-331

Annotation

Data from the National Crime Victimization Survey during 1987-90 were used to explore the extent to which victim resistance during an assault differentially produced injury between assaults perpetrated by intimates and those perpetrated by strangers.

Abstract

The sample included 656 women who reported assaults by single offenders who were intimates (husbands, former husbands, or others) and 265 women who reported assaults by single offenders who were strangers. Self-protective measures included physical and verbal/passive behavior. Results revealed that female victims of assaults perpetrated by intimates were nearly twice as likely to sustain injury if they used either physical or verbal self-protective behavior. However, the only significant predictor of injury sustained by female victims of assaults perpetrated by strangers was the presence of a weapon. Self-protective behavior did not predict the extent to which victims of either intimate-perpetrated or stranger-perpetrated assaults received medical treatment for their injuries. Tables and 18 references (Author abstract modified)