The effectiveness of victim resistance strategies against stranger child abduction: an analysis of attempted and completed cases
Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
Existing research, policy information, and materials intended to teach children assume that
certain behaviours will protect children in the event that a stranger tries to abduct them.
However, there is little empirical basis for these assumptions. This article examines
resistance strategies thought to reduce the likelihood that a child will be able to overcome an
attempted stranger child abduction event. 78 cases of stranger child abduction that occurred
in the United Kingdom between 1988 and 2014, including 25 attempted cases and 53
completed cases, were examined in order to ascertain the relative prevalence of various
resistance types, and to assess whether the presence or absence of 7 key resistance strategies
had an impact on the outcome of the abduction.
Results show that direct, unequivocal verbal resistance, running away, and a composite
approach where the victim runs away, calls for help and reports the offence were highly
effective means of resisting an offender, whereas physical resistance, indirect verbal
resistance and non-resistance were not effective. Female victims were almost twice as likely
to employ any kind of resistance strategy against an offender as male victims. The
implications of these findings for augmenting ways in which children are taught about safety
are discussed.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 277-295 |
Journal | Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling |
Volume | 13 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 23 Mar 2016 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2016 |
Documents
- Examining the Effectiveness of Victim Resistance against Stranger Child Abduction- Main Document- Resubmission
Rights statement: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Collie, C. J. R., and Shalev Greene, K. (2016) The Effectiveness of Victim Resistance Strategies against Stranger Child Abduction: An Analysis of Attempted and Completed Cases. J. Investig. Psych. Offender Profil., which has been published in final form at: doi: 10.1002/jip.1457. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
Accepted author manuscript (Post-print), 84 KB, Word-document
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