Examining charging agreement between police and prosecutors in rape cases

Citation

Chou, M. (2010), "Examining charging agreement between police and prosecutors in rape cases", Policing: An International Journal, Vol. 33 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/pijpsm.2010.18133dab.005

Examining charging agreement between police and prosecutors in rape cases

Examining charging agreement between police and prosecutors in rape cases

Article Type: Perspectives on policing From: Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies & Management, Volume 33, Issue 4

David Holleran, Dawn Beichner, and Cassis SpohnCrime and DelinquencyVol. 56, No. 32010pp. 386-413

Sexual assault case proceedings have recently acquired considerable attention in criminal justice research. However, much of the prior research has typically examined whether or not charges have been filed, neglecting the decision regarding what charges are filed. The prosecutor has the power to alter law enforcement’s charges. This relationship between charges filed by police at arrest and those filed by the prosecutor at screening has not been extensively examined. Holleran et al. explore this issue by investigating the influence of legal and extralegal determinants on charging agreement between police and prosecutors.

Extant empirical and theoretical research has established the prosecutor’s decision to file charges in sexual assault cases to be influenced principally by legal factors. Factors used to assess convictability such as seriousness of offense, evidence strength, and suspect’s prior record consistently emerge as significant predictors of prosecutorial charging decision. On the other hand, some uncertainty exist on the veracity of extralegal determinants. Paralleling the focal concerns perspectives for judges, prosecutors are also motivated by the practical constraints of the likelihood of conviction, forcing them to anticipate how judge and jury will view the victim, suspect, and crime. Due to the innate ambiguity of predictions, prosecutors often rely on stereotypes in these predictions. These stereotypes fall into the categories of aggravated and simple rape. Aggravated rape embodies the traditionalist view of sexual assault, involving a weapon-carrying stranger who jumps and brutally attacks his unsuspecting victim. The construct of simple rape is one typically perpetrated by acquaintances with minimal injury to the victim. Previous research has shown that all parties in the criminal justice system sympathize with the victim in aggravated rape cases. This is not the case with simple rape. As a result, demographic, character, and behavioral determinants may also exert some influence on prosecutorial charging decisions.

Additionally, prosecutorial decision-making criteria on filing charges may vary depending on the departmental policy for screening cases. Four distinct categories of departmental policy have been proposed. First, the legal sufficiency policy accepts all criminal cases, leading to high rates of case acceptation and high dismissal rates before proceeding to trial. Second, the system efficiency policy emphasizes case screening to decrease workload. This departmental policy utilizes a high level of referrals to diversionary programs and plea-bargaining to reduce the workload. Third, the defendant rehabilitation policy embraces the concept that most defendants should not be processed through the justice system, instead focusing on noncriminal justice alternatives. Lastly, the trial sufficiency policy seeks to maximize the likelihood of a conviction by screening out cases that do not ensure a conviction. These departmental policy categories provide the framework to examine the decision-making process of charging decisions.

Building from both these literatures, the study undertaken seeks to determine whether prosecutorial charging decisions in sexual assault cases will vary depending on the departmental policies and nature of the rapes. To test this, data on sexual assault cases were obtained from two cities implementing different departmental policies. Of the four proposed policies, only the trial sufficiency and legal sufficiency standards were compared.

Binomial logistic regression was used to examine the significance of exogenous factors on charging agreement between police and prosecutors on a forcible rape charge. Step-wise models were tested in three separate blocks to determine the explanatory power of prevailing, aggravated rape, and culpability factors. The first stage included the prevailing factors seen in most studies of prosecutorial charging decisions. These include presence of evidence, demographic characteristics, and victim-suspect relationship. The second stage added determinants of aggravated rape. Lastly, measures that may cause officials to either discard or believe the victim’s credibility were included in the model.

Comparing the departmental policies, the results showed in the full model that the trial efficiency standard (pseudo-R² 0.438) was able to explain more of the variation in police-prosecution agreements compared to the legal efficiency standard (pseudo-R² 0.223). Regression results also showed that the presence of physical evidence was associated with a higher likelihood of charging agreement in both types of departmental policies across all models. Moreover, additional aggravated rape covariates significantly influenced the likelihood of charging agreement within the trial efficiency standard. In the trial efficiency standard, prosecutors were more likely to agree with police if the suspect was a stranger, used a weapon, and/or inflicted major injuries. However, with the legal efficiency standard, prosecutors were more likely to file forcible rape charges with nonacquaintance rape and multiple offenders. The presence of significant aggravated rape factors in both models suggests that prosecutors do not categorize rapes as either simple or aggravated. Instead, they assess their ability to convict a suspect based on a continuum of simple to aggravated rape. None of the culpability factors were found to be significant.

In conclusion, this study demonstrates that not all women or all rape cases are treated equally in the criminal justice system. By conceptualizing the charging decision in a new way, the departmental screening policy significantly influenced the likelihood of a charging agreement between the police and prosecutor. This study sheds light on the prosecutors’ charging decision beyond simply deciding on whether to file charges within the framework of screening policies, more examination is needed to better understand this issue.

Michael ChouUniversity of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, USA