Citation

Budd KM, Mancini C, Bierie DM. Sex. Abuse 2019; 31(5): 580-606.

Affiliation

United States Marshals Service, Alexandria, VA, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2019, SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1079063218797712

PMID

30191750

Abstract

In the United States, certain laws restrict those convicted of sexually offending from accessing social spaces where youth congregate such as parks and playgrounds. However, empirical work to date has rarely described sexual assaults in these locations or tested the assumptions of these laws explicitly. To address these gaps in the literature, we drew on the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) to analyze offender, victim, and crime characteristics of sexual assaults that occurred at parks and playgrounds over a 5-year period (2010-2015). Estimated via multivariate logistic regression, results showed support for these law's assumptions when analyzing this particular location. However, stranger perpetrators were significantly more likely to sexually assault adult victims versus youth victims. Several other offense features distinguished youth versus adult victim sexual assault incidents at parks and playgrounds, such as the offender age, the use of force, and the injuries sustained by the victim. Collectively, these findings both support and challenge these types of social space restriction laws.

Language: en

Keywords

parks; playgrounds; residence restrictions; sex offending; sexual assault; victims