Why Do Police Go Unreported

Crime is and always will be existent in society. Law enforcement officers tend to do what they can to keep that crime to a minimum, but they will never be able to abolish it completely. The other issue with crime is that there is a lot more of it than one would think. The reason being, that a lot of crimes go unreported. Although this may surprise some people, there are numerous reasons why a victim would not report a crime to the police.
Age, race, gender, and marital status can all be factors in whether or not a person reports a crime. “Older, white females who are married are the kind of victims most likely to report crimes.” (why crimes aren’t reported). The reason for this is the simple fact that the majority of older whites have built up their trust in the police, whereas younger minorities have not built up enough trust to report a crime. The relationship that a community has with the police can greatly factor into whether a crime gets reported to the authorities. Communities that have a good relationship with their police …show more content…
People tend to report the more severe crimes as opposed to the milder offenses. This is especially true of any offense involving physical force resulting in injury (why crimes aren’t reported). However, offenses such as sexual assault are vastly unreported in comparison to other crimes. Numerous victims of sexual assault choose not to report the crime committed against them for various reasons. These reasons included the fear of retaliation, the belief that the police would not or could not help them, the shame of others knowing what happened, not wanting to get the offender in trouble, and the idea that the crime was not bad enough to report. “Only 310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to police” (The Criminal Justice System). There are still multiple factors that remain that decide whether or not a crime becomes