Sexual Assault Crisis Centre Workers' Perceptions of Law Enforcement: Defining the Situation from a Systems Perspective
| Author | Brian K. Payne,R. Alan Thompson |
| Published date | 01 March 2008 |
| Date | 01 March 2008 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1350/ijps.2008.10.1.23 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Sexual assault crisis centre workers’
perceptions of law enforcement: defining
the situation from a systems perspective
Brian K. Payne‡and R. Alan Thompson†
‡(Corresponding author) Department of Criminal Justice, Georgia State University, Atlanta,
GA 30302, USA. Tel: (404) 413 1020; email: bpayne@gsu.edu
†Administration of Justice Department, University of Southern Mississippi, Hattiesburg, MS
39406, USA; email: alan.thompson@usm.edu
Received 3 August 2006; accepted 22 November 2006
Keywords: police, sexual assault, victim advocates
Brian K. Payne
is a Professor of Criminal Justice
and Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice
at Georgia State University. He is the author or
co-author of five books including Crime and
Elder Abuse: An Integrated Perspective, Crime in
the Home Health Care Field, and Family Violence
and Criminal Justice. He is the author of more
than 70 journal articles. His research focuses on
social control and a criminological understanding
of elder abuse. His research has been published
in journals such as Justice Quarterly, Journal
of Criminal Justice, and Journal of Offender
Rehabilitation.
R. Alan Thompson
is an Associate Professor in
Administration of Justice at The University of
Southern Mississippi. He previously co-authored
Significant Cases in Criminal Procedure with
Hemmens and Worrall (Roxbury, 2004) and An
Introduction to Criminal Evidence with Nored,
Worrall and Hemmens (Oxford, 2008). He is also
the author of Career Experiences of African
American Police Executives: Black in Blue
Revisited (LFB Scholarly, 2003). Dr Thompson is
a former police officer and current editor of
Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology.
A
BSTRACT
To date, the literature tends to be rife with
research examining individuals’ perceptions of the
police. Most of this research had focused on how
members of the public perceived law enforcement.
Missing from this research were two types of
studies: (1) those examining how certain types
of professionals perceive the problems they have
collaborating with law enforcement; and (2) those
examining the consequences of those perceptions.
This study addressed that void by considering
how 44 sexual assault crisis workers described
their experiences in collaborating with law
enforcement agencies. In the discussion, attention
was given to the possible consequences of these
perceptions. Implications are provided.
INTRODUCTION
Years ago, the ‘definition of a situation’
theorem was created to describe the
importance of individuals’ perceptions
(Thomas & Thomas, 1928). According to
this perspective, if individuals define situ-
ations as real, those situations will become
real in their consequences. In terms of
criminal behaviour, the implications under-
lying this aspect of labelling theory are
clear: if you label individuals as bad, their
likelihood of being bad increases. Indeed,
when assessing the influence of perceptions
of labelling, most criminologists have
focused on the process in which labels result
International Journal of Police Science & Management Volume 10 Number 1
International Journal of Police
Science and Management,
Vol. 10 No. 1, 2008, pp. 23–35.
DOI: 10.1350/ijpsm.2008.10.1.61
Page 23
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