Crime-victim evaluation of police investigative performance

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine whether demographic characteristics of victims and the nature of the police investigative response were related to victim satisfaction. The data were obtained through self-administered questionnaires completed by a random sample of 436/685 (64 percent) crime victims in a medium-sized midwestern city. Respondents were victims of personal (N = 79), serious property (N = 165), and minor property crimes (N = 192). Analysis showed that the education, gender, and income of the victims were not related to satisfaction for any of the crime-victim categories. Younger victims were less likely to be satisfied than older victims but only in the case of serious property crimes. Expectation of response time was most strongly related to victim satisfaction in serious (personal and property) offenses; victims who reported a faster than expected response time were more likely to be satisfied than those who reported a slower than expected response time. When there was a high degree of investigative effort, victims in both property-crime categories were more likely to be satisfied than when the effort was minimal. Police professionalism had the the greatest effect on victim satisfaction; a high degree of professionalism was positively related with satisfaction for all crime types. The findings generally show that the type of criminal victimization is an important consideration in victim evaluation research.