Effects of police officers' attitudes toward victims of sexual offenses on investigative interviewing

Police officers must strike a delicate balance between extracting crucial information from victims of sexual violence to solve cases and providing them with necessary psychological care. This study examined whether officers' self-perceptions of their attitudes during victim interviews aligned with victims' perceptions and investigated how these perceptions impacted the acquisition of essential information for case resolution. The current study analyzed 122 paired datasets comprising victims of sexual assaults and the corresponding police officers who interviewed them between October 2017 and December 2018. A categorical exploratory factor analysis identified a common factor, "appropriate attitude," reflecting officers' concern for victims. A moderate intraclass correlation between the factor scores was found. The results from the actor-partner interdependence model indicated that victims who reported being properly cared for by officers were more likely to provide the details about their victimized experiences and influence officers' perceptions of whether they obtained essential information for their investigation, compared with those who did not report feeling cared for.