Investigating Intimate Partner Sexual Assault: Detective Decision-Making and Case Outcomes

Focusing specifically on the investigation phase of the criminal justice process, this study asked the primary research question: Which factors influence detective decision-making in IPSA cases? Further still, the study sought to answer that question through focal concerns theory, along with several secondary research questions. This study analyzed a police data set of 2,224 incidents of IPSA over 16 years from one of the largest police municipalities in the country. This research utilized multivariate analysis in the form of multinomial logistic regressions to determine which factors influence detective decision-making in IPSA cases.