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Reporting Sexual Assaults Against Juveniles The one category of crime in the NCVS that does not appear to be underreported by juveniles compared with adults is sexual assault. Thirty percent of juvenile sexual assaults are reported to police compared with 29 percent of adult sexual assaults (see figure 3). But sexual assault is the most underreported violent crime to any authority for both juveniles and adults. One way of understanding this result is that adults underreport sexual assault more than they underreport other crime victimization to an even greater extent than juveniles. Adults report 55 percent of all violent crimes but only 36 percent of sexual assaults. Juveniles, on the other hand, also report only 36 percent of sexual assaults, but this is more in keeping with their lower reporting (44 percent) of all violent crimes. Several possible explanations exist. First, sexual assaults on children are considered particularly serious crimes, which may counteract the embarrassment and shame that lie behind some of the underdisclosure of this crime. Second, parents, who may be the arbiters of what juvenile victimizations get reported, may be less ashamed and embarrassed to report their child's victimization than adults reporting their own victimization of sexual assault. Third, parents may feel it is particularly important to obtain medical or psychological assistance (including medical exams and counseling) for child victims of sexual assault, and professionals in these fields facilitate reporting. Finally, a methodological factor may be at work: adults who have not previously disclosed a sexual assault to an authority may be more comfortable doing so to an NCVS interviewer than a juvenile would be, so that a greater proportion of unreported adult sexual assaults get disclosed on the NCVS than unreported child sexual assaults. Sexual assaults involving a weapon were the one type of sexual assault that juveniles significantly underreported to authorities as compared with adults; these crimes were reported by 77 percent of adults but only 14 percent of juveniles (see figure 3). Although based on a small number of cases, this finding is consistent with juveniles' lower rate (comparatively) of reporting of weapons assaults for all violent crimes (48 percent for juveniles and 65 percent for adults) (see figure 1). One possible explanation is that juveniles and their families may feel particularly vulnerable to retaliation, offsetting the otherwise greater likelihood of weapons crimes coming to police attention.
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