The topic of sexual assault has become an increasingly hot button issue thanks to social movements such as #MeToo and the publicization of victim experiences via social media such as Facebook and Twitter. Unfortunately, there exists a gap in research regarding incidences of sexual assault that occur on transportation, specifically on airplanes. Even less research has been conducted in an attempt to explain exactly why such incidences occur during air travel and what we can do to address this type of crime. In an attempt to fill in this gap, a small Miami University research team collected information from 80 web-based media stories that covered reports of sexual assault on airplanes. This information was then transferred to a document where various victim, offender, and crime characteristics were coded. After analyzing the aforementioned data, it was found that a large proportion of the victims are female and were sleeping while the assault occurred. Through the routine activity theory, it was posited that the victims were considered “suitable targets” because they were asleep and therefore could not fight back right away. Additionally, this theory was also used to guide recommendations on how to reduce future victimizations, the chief recommendation being the creation of an official reporting system to track patterns in data to better prevent and address cases of sexual assault on airplanes.
Author: Bailey Brown
Faculty Advisor: Kristen Budd, Department of Sociology and Gerontology
You must be logged in to post a comment.