Beauregard Eric, Mieczkowski Tom
School of Criminology and Centre for Research on Sexual Violence, Simon Fraser University, Canada.
Violence Vict. 2012;27(4):470-86. doi: 10.1891/0886-6708.27.4.470.
This study examines what factors may distinguish injury from death in sexual crimes. We suggest that victim characteristics may work in conjunction with the crime context to enhance or reduce a fatal outcome once a sexual assault is underway. Based on a sample of 201 sex offenders who either physically injured or killed their victim, we calculate risk estimations of lethal and injurious outcomes for various conjunctions of victim characteristics and contextual aspects of the crime event. One of the most interesting findings is the apparent protective effects of a victim's criminogenic environment, which consistently appears to decrease the probability of a fatal outcome.