Understanding trauma misperceptions among frontline police personnel: the role of training, rape myths and organizational context

Victim-survivors ^[1] of sexual violence face an uphill battle when it comes to seeking justice (Daly and Bouhours, 2010; Gilbert, 2024; Stanko and Hohl, 2018; Temkin and Krahé, 2008; Wieberneit et al., 2024). Among the barriers to justice that victim-survivors encounter are challenges to their credibility (Wieberneit et al., 2024). These are reported at every stage of the process, from the police investigation to the courtroom (Beichner and Spohn, 2005; Campbell et al., 2015; Lapsey et al., 2022; Sinclair, 2022; Walters et al., 2025). In turn, doubts about the credibility of a victim-survivor lead to case attrition (Wieberneit et al., 2024), and victim retraumatization (McQueen et al., 2021).

One factor found to contribute to credibility concerns among criminal justice professionals is trauma misperceptions. Trauma misperceptions describe the way that police, and other criminal justice professionals misinterpret trauma symptoms as deception (Franklin et al., 2020; King and Bostaph, 2024; Lapsey et al., 2025; Tidmarsh and Hamilton, 2020). For example, a police officer may observe a victim-survivor has a flat affect (rather than an emotional affect) during a report or interview. If the police officer expects that a real victim will be emotional, they may consider the flat affect as a sign of deception and question the victim’s credibility (for a review of relevant research see van Doorn and Koster, 2019). As such, trauma misperceptions reflect a poor understanding of the myriad of ways that victim-survivors may respond following a sexual assault (Tidmarsh and Hamilton, 2020).

Although misunderstandings of trauma are one explanation for negative police attitudes and behaviors towards victim-survivors of sexual violence, only a few published papers directly measure or examine trauma misperceptions among police (Ask, 2010; Franklin et al., 2020; Lapsey et al., 2025). The current paper explores the predictors of trauma misperceptions of victim-survivors of sexual violence in a study of frontline police officers. We begin our paper with a discussion of why trauma misperceptions are undesirable; we then overview the current research on trauma misperceptions and explain the unique contribution of our study before presenting our methods and results.

While rates of sexual violence remain high globally (World Health Organization, 2025), attaining justice in these cases is a less common occurrence. We know that victim-survivors of sexual violence face barriers to reporting (Wieberneit et al., 2024) and seldom report their victimization to the police (e.g. US: Tapp and Coen, 2024; Australia: Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2023; Canada: Cotter, 2024; Europe: Eurostat, 2024). For those who choose to report, an additional barrier is that sexual violence cases experience significant attrition across the criminal justice process. This includes high rates of attrition at the police investigation stage, with only a small proportion of cases leading to prosecution and conviction (Daly and Bouhours, 2010; Gilbert, 2024; Stanko and Hohl, 2018; Temkin and Krahé, 2008; Wieberneit et al., 2024). Differential access to justice for victim-survivors of sexual violence has become known as the “justice gap” (Temkin and Krahé, 2008).

Victim credibility is one factor that may increase the likelihood of case attrition, and therefore reduce access to justice, at the police investigation stage. In a recent systematic review, Wieberneit et al. (2024) examined the barriers to justice for female complainants of sexual violence and found that rape myths, victim credibility and inconsistencies in a victim’s story represent significant barriers to justice during police investigations (Gekoski et al., 2024; Ricciardelli et al., 2021; Sinclair, 2022; Venema, 2016). When victims are not perceived as credible, police are less likely to undertake a thorough investigation or to charge or arrest a suspected offender – resulting in case attrition (Campbell et al., 2015; Lapsey et al., 2022; Sinclair, 2022; Wieberneit et al., 2024).

Victim credibility concerns often arise from a lack of understanding about the way trauma presents in victim-survivors. For example, in their meta-analysis of 20 studies of criminal justice professionals (including police), Nitschke et al. (2019) found that the emotional demeanour of a complainant predicted perceived victim credibility. When police connect the emotional demeanor or affect of a victim-survivor with the veracity of a victim’s story, they are likely misperceiving the signs of trauma (Ask, 2010; Franklin et al., 2020; Lapsey et al., 2025).

The term trauma misperceptions captures this connection between credibility concerns and the presentation of trauma. Trauma misperceptions can be defined as the way police or other criminal justice actors “misperceive a sexual assault survivor if their demeanour or behavior is contrary to widely held expectations about what trauma presentation “should” look like” (Lapsey et al., 2025, p. 21; for a summary see Franklin et al., 2020). Common misperceptions regarding trauma responses include beliefs that victim-survivors should report the assault immediately, display significant emotional distress when recounting the incident, physically resist during the assault and sustain visible injuries (Tidmarsh and Hamilton, 2020). These misconceptions relate to officers’ inadequate understanding of the influence of traumatic memory on victim-survivor behavior, as well as cultural myths about what constitutes a typical rape or sexual assault and how a victim-survivor would typically be expected to behave (Tidmarsh and Hamilton, 2020).

Scholars suggest police misperceptions of trauma, and subsequent officer doubts about victim credibility, can taint the investigation process and officer decision-making about sexual violence case progression (Tidmarsh et al., 2020), leading to the dismissal of legitimate sexual violence cases (Page, 2008). For example, in a study of sexual assault reports in a US police department, King and Bostaph (2024) found that officer doubt significantly reduced the likelihood of arrest and referral for prosecution, after controlling for legal and extra-legal factors.

The failure to arrest and charge in legitimate sexual violence cases is not the only negative outcome of trauma misperceptions. The failure to take action—and the lack of belief in the credibility of the victim-survivor—may also result in secondary victimization or retraumatization. That is, “when survivors feel invalidated, are met with disbelief, or interpret justice professionals as blaming, trauma symptoms are exacerbated” (Franklin et al., 2020, p. 1057).

Police trauma misperceptions have the potential to shape case progression and victim-survivors’ experiences (Sleath and Bull, 2017). Given this, research should seek to identify the factors that contribute to, or protect against, the development of trauma misperceptions among police officers. However, in a literature search, only three studies were identified that examined the antecedents of trauma misperceptions among police.

First, Ask (2010) undertook a survey of 211 police officers and 190 prosecutors in Sweden. Survey respondents were asked to report on a range of questions about victims, including questions about victim trauma misperceptions. Ask (2010) found that the majority of respondents held some belief that a victim’s emotional expression was related to their credibility. The survey also asked respondents about whether they had undertaken “special training concerning crime victims’ reactions and behaviors” and “whether they had tried to increase their knowledge on the issue on their own initiative” (Ask, 2010, p. 1139). This is an important question, given that police training in relation to sexual violence is increasingly focused on implementing trauma-informed practice (Lapsey et al., 2024). They found that those who had undertaken special training were less likely to believe that “emotional expressions were indicative of truthfulness” (Ask, 2010, p. 1142). Thus, specialist training appeared to reduce trauma misperceptions in this study.

Second, Franklin et al. (2020) conducted a more comprehensive analysis of the predictors of trauma misperceptions drawing on a sample of 979 police officers in a large US city. In addition to examining the effect of trauma-informed training, Franklin et al. (2020, p. 1062) included a measure of impulsivity, which they anticipated may approximate a “lack of critical thinking and a reliance on stereotypes”, as well as a measure of rape myth acceptance (which is commonly examined in studies of attitudes toward victim-survivors), prior caseload/relevant calls for service, gender, race, educational attainment and years of service. While trauma misperceptions refer to misunderstandings about the effects of trauma on a victim-survivor and how they should behave (Ask, 2010; Franklin et al., 2020; Lapsey et al., 2025), rape myths ^[2] serve to deny and justify sexual violence by defining what constitutes real rape and excusing perpetrator responsibility via blaming the victim (Shaw et al., 2017). In this way, an acceptance of rape myths likely contributes to misunderstandings of trauma presentation. When examined in a multivariate model, Franklin et al. (2020) found that rape myth acceptance was the strongest predictor of trauma misperceptions, followed by trauma-informed training (which was negatively correlated with misperceptions), years of service, gender and impulsivity (with remaining variables non-significant in the model). Altogether, the variables tested accounted for 23% of the variance in the dependent variable, trauma misperceptions.

Lastly, Lapsey et al. (2025) examined the effect of a sexual violence training program on police officers in Kentucky, US. Using a quasi-experimental design, Lapsey et al. (2025) surveyed 388 police officers who either had or had not completed the training program. While the primary purpose of the study was to assess the effects of the training on either rape myth acceptance or trauma misperceptions, the authors also examined the role of location (i.e. urban/suburban), impulsivity, education, years of service, number of sexual assault reports responded to in the last 12 months, gender and race. They found that training, impulsivity, years of service and gender were significant predictors of trauma misperceptions. As with Franklin et al. (2020), Lapsey et al.’s (2025) analysis indicated that the variables included only accounted for 9% of the variance in the dependent variable, trauma misperceptions. The results of these studies indicate that more can be known about the predictors of trauma misperceptions.

Our study aims to build upon and extend prior research by examining additional predictors of trauma misperceptions among police in a new context. We do this by employing a sample of both sworn ^[3] and unsworn frontline police personnel in an Australian jurisdiction. In addition to measuring individual characteristics including rape myth acceptance and participation in trauma-informed training, we also consider how the police organizational context (as viewed by police personnel) may influence trauma misperceptions. Specifically, we examine the way that police perceive organizational policies and procedures relating to sexual violence and negative cultural attitudes and consider how these impact trauma misperceptions.

To explain further, organizations set role expectations for police officers through articulating the organizational mission and values and developing organizational policies and procedures. A policy can be defined as “an overall action plan for the agency,” whereas procedures are “acceptable methods of meeting the agency’s policies” (Carpenter, 2000, pp. 1–2). As explained by (Carpenter, 2000, p. 2), “Policies and procedures can inform department personnel of their responsibilities, outline acceptable procedures to follow, establish general performance standards, and create consistency among employees in carrying out their numerous tasks”. In the case of sexual violence response, an organizational policy context that supports police in responding effectively to sexual violence and is supportive of victim-survivors’ needs will likely reduce the incidence of poor policing practices, including holding, or being guided by, trauma misperceptions. In this way, police organizational policies and procedures can set the tone for how police should respond to reports of sexual violence.

In addition to policies and procedures which guide police practice in their day-to-day work, police culture impacts police behavior (Westmarland, 2012). While policies and procedures are more visible, police culture is mostly “unseen” but pervasive within a police agency (Charman, 2017, p. 128; Chan, 1996). Paoline et al. (2006, p. 576) define police culture as a “set of outlooks widely shared among officers”, although scholars recognize police culture is not monolithic. This means that culture can vary depending on the local work unit (Westmarland, 2012). Police culture has been viewed as encapsulating negative aspects such as “masculine hegemony, racism, prejudice, discrimination and exclusion” (Charman, 2017, p. 128). Relating this to sexual violence, if a police officer works with colleagues who, for example, generally doubt the credibility of victim-survivors, we may expect that this negative culture will influence police attitudes toward victims, including trauma misperceptions.

Considering the above, we anticipate that variations in policies, practices and cultures within and across police organizations will likely affect police understandings of trauma, sexual violence and trauma misperceptions. Emerging evidence points in this direction, with research on police responses to sexual violence suggesting that organizational context may shape how officers respond. For example, when synthesising the findings of prior research, Davies et al. (2022, p. 3) suggest mixed evidence relating to the effect of rape myths on policing outcomes may be due to “different local cultures and training provision” across studies. Similarly, in their research on the implementation of Project Bluestone in the UK, Hohl et al. (2022) noted that the lack of standardised policies and procedures likely contributed to the variability in police approaches to rape victims. Hohl et al. (2022, p. 258) concluded that “a victim survivor experiencing ‘good’ police engagement was more a matter of ‘luck’ than a result of established organisational processes, structures, and culture that enable consistently good victim-survivor engagement”. While not testing the relationship between police organizational policing, practices, cultures and trauma misperceptions directly, these papers point to a role for these factors in understanding police attitudes and approaches toward victim-survivors.

Our study builds on prior research about police responses to sexual violence broadly, and the predictors of trauma misperceptions specifically, by investigating the unique roles of police training, rape myth acceptance and police perceptions of organizational policies, procedures and culture in understanding trauma misperceptions. In the following section, we discuss our research methods. We then present our results and explore the implications of our findings for theory and practice.

The research site is one state policing organization in a single jurisdiction in Australia. Data were collected as part of an evaluation of the organization’s sexual violence response strategy (the strategy). The strategy aimed to enhance police capabilities to prevent and respond to sexual violence and to apply a victim-centric, trauma-informed approach. The strategy was situated within a broader context of Australia-wide concerns about police responses to sexual violence. For example, in 2017, the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (2017) highlighted inadequacies in police responses to sexual abuse, including failing to adequately address victims-survivors’ needs in a trauma-informed way. In 2020, an ABC News investigation similarly revealed the need for a more victim-centric, trauma-informed response to sexual violence (Ting et al., 2020).

To assess the efficacy of the strategy, all frontline police personnel across the organization were contacted via internal email and invited to complete a survey. Frontline police personnel were defined as including general duties police officers, front counter staff and police call-centre operators. As all frontline personnel were contacted, they all had an equal chance of participating in the survey. The survey took place between November and December 2022 and examined participants’ attitudes and perceptions relating to police responses to sexual violence. Surveys were completed via LimeSurvey. The sampling pool included 7,731 sworn and unsworn police personnel. Of these, 1,470 frontline police personnel opened the emailed survey link, and 675 participants submitted completed surveys, resulting in a cooperation rate of 45.9%. Survey participants were distributed fairly evenly across regions, with 40% of participants located in metropolitan regions and smaller proportions of participants in regional/rural areas, as might be anticipated based on the expected population distribution. The sample primarily comprised sworn police officers (80.2%); most sworn officers were at the rank of Constable, Senior Constable, or Sergeant (95.2%), with a small proportion of survey participants reporting a rank of Senior Sergeant (4.1%) and Inspector or above (0.8%). When describing their role, 3.6% of the sample identified as call centre staff, 3.8% as a client services officer, 3.5% as a police liaison officer, 4.8% as front-counter staff and 67.8% identified as a general duties police officer. Most of the survey sample were under the age of 45 (55.3%), 43.2% were female and 8.3% identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander.

The key dependent variable in this study is trauma misperceptions. Our measure was adapted from Ask’s (2010) Perceptions of Victim Reporting Behaviors (PVRB) scale. The PVRB examines the way police connect victim reporting behaviors with the veracity of a victim’s statement. Four items were included in the scale. These were measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree, with lower scores indicating a better understanding of trauma-informed policing approaches. Items were: (1) “A victim’s display of emotions when talking about the crime is generally an indicator of the truth of their statement”; (2) “A victim’s inability to report details about the event shortly after the crime (less than a day), is generally reason to question the truth of their statement”; (3) “Details that appear in a victim’s memory after a period of time are generally less reliable than those that the victim can report right from the start” and; (4) “A victim’s reluctance to give a detailed account of the crime is generally an indicator of the truth of their statement”. High scores on the adapted PVRB scale indicate increased trauma misperceptions. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.71, indicating the scale was reliable. Descriptive statistics for all variables are shown in Table 1.

Independent variables were included to capture both individual and organizational characteristics. First, we measured a number of individual characteristics anticipated to be associated with trauma misperceptions as single-item measures. These included gender (male = 1, female or other = 0), sworn status (i.e. whether the participant was a sworn or unsworn police personnel; sworn = 1, unsworn = 0), years of service (measured in years), workload and sexual violence training participation. Workload was measured with the item: “Over the past 12 months, approximately what percentage of your workload has involved reports of sexual violence?”. This item was drawn from Lathan et al. (2019). Responses ranged from 0 to 100%. The variable sexual violence training was measured with the item: “Have you participated in any training on responding to sexual violence in the last 12 months?” (1 = yes, 0 = no) ^[4].

Next, three single-item measures were included to capture police perceptions of organizational policies and procedures, support for victim survivors and culture. These were: (1) “The [Anonymized] Police Service has policies and procedures in place to effectively respond to victims of sexual violence”; (2) “The [Anonymized] Police Service adequately considers the needs of victims of sexual violence”; and (3) “Some of my fellow officers make negative comments about victims of sexual violence.” Responses were measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree.

Lastly, rape myth acceptance was measured using the “she lied” subscale from the Illinois Rape Myth Acceptance Scale Shortform (McMahon and Farmer, 2011). Four items were included. These were: (1) “A lot of times, women who say they were raped agreed to have sex and then regret it”; (2) “Rape accusations are often used as a way of getting back at men”; (3) “A lot of times, women who say they were raped often led the man on and then had regrets”; and (4) “A lot of times, women who claim they were raped just have emotional problems”. Responses were measured on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree. Items were compiled into a mean scale. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.88, indicating the scale was reliable.

To examine the relationship between our independent variables and the dependent variable, trauma misperceptions, we undertook a nested regression in STATA with robust standard errors. Missing variables were imputed using the “mi” or multiple imputation command (with 20 imputed datasets) ^[5]. R-squared values and change in R-squared were computed to understand the contribution of different variable types to the analyses. Variables were entered in blocks in four Models. Models 1 and 2 are reported in Table 2 and Models 3 and 4 are reported in Table 3 below. Model 1 includes basic demographic variables (gender, years of service and whether the participant is a sworn or unsworn police personnel); Model 2 includes individual competency variables (i.e. workload or experience with sexual violence reports, whether the participant completed sexual violence training in the past 12 months). Model 3 includes perceptions of the police organization (whether the organization has the policies and procedures to respond to sexual violence effectively, whether the organization considers victims’ needs and whether other police officers make negative comments about sexual violence victims). Lastly, Model 4 includes rape myth acceptance. Rape myth acceptance was entered last as exploratory analyses showed that rape myth acceptance had the strongest relationship to trauma misperceptions of all the variables included in the final Model.

Results from the multivariate analyses are presented in Models 1 through 4 in Tables 2 and 3. Starting with Model 1 (see Table 2), we find that of the demographic variables (gender, years of service and being a sworn or unsworn police personnel), only gender had an effect on trauma misperceptions. That is, men (B = 0.170, p ≤ 0.01) were more likely to misperceive trauma than women police personnel. These variables accounted for a very small proportion of the variance explained in the dependent variable (1.5%). However, these results indicate that gender continues to play a role in explaining how police (whether they be officers or unsworn police personnel) approach victim-survivors of sexual violence.

Turning to Model 2 (see Table 2), we added the individual competency variables. Of these, prior workload (i.e. the percentage of a participant’s workload that involved reports of sexual violence in the past 12 months) was not a significant predictor in the model. However, prior sexual violence training (in the past 12 months) was a significant and negative predictor of trauma misperceptions (B = −0.138, p ≤ 0.05). That is, having completed training meant that participants were less likely to misperceive trauma. This makes sense given that sexual violence training tends to focus on trauma-informed practice. However, it is important to note that these variables only explained an additional 1% of the variance in trauma misperceptions. Notably, gender remained a significant predictor of trauma misperceptions (B = 0.183, p ≤ 0.01), even when controlling for workload and training.

In Model 3 (see Table 3), perceived organizational attitudes toward sexual violence were added. Again, the addition of these variables only resulted in a small change in R-squared (i.e. adding these variables explained 1.7% of the variance in trauma misperceptions). We found that the effective policies and procedures variable (“The [Anonymized] Police Service has policies and procedures in place to effectively respond to victims of sexual violence”) was not significantly related to trauma misperceptions. However, considers victims’ needs (“The [Anonymized] Police Service adequately considers the needs of victims of sexual violence”) and officers make negative remarks (“Some of my fellow officers make negative comments about victims of sexual violence”) were both significant predictors in the model. Interestingly, both variables were positively related to trauma misperceptions (B = 0.097, p ≤ 0.05 and B = 0.058, p ≤ 0.05, respectively). While we might expect to see a positive relationship between colleagues’ negative perceptions of victims and trauma misperceptions, we would expect that when the police service “adequately considers the needs of victims of sexual violence”, trauma misperceptions would be reduced (not increased). We address this unexpected finding in the discussion section below. Once again, gender remained a significant predictor of trauma misperceptions (B = 0.174, p ≤ 0.01), even when controlling for these organizational variables, as did prior training (B = −0.154, p ≤ 0.05).

Lastly, in Model 4 (see Table 3), rape myth acceptance was added to the model. The addition of rape myth acceptance was the greatest contributor to explaining the variation in trauma misperceptions in the model, explaining 16.4% of the variance in the dependent variable. Rape myth acceptance was positively and significantly (B = 0.368, p ≤ 0.001) associated with trauma misperceptions, as expected. As with Model 3, gender remained a significant predictor of perceptions of victim behaviors (B = 0.128, p ≤ 0.05). Considers victim needs (B = 0.080, p ≤ 0.05) and prior training (B = −0.114, p ≤ 0.05) also remained significant predictors in the final model but officers make negative remarks was no longer significant once rape myth acceptance was accounted for.

Trauma misperceptions can lead to case attrition and victim retraumatisation (Franklin et al., 2020; King and Bostaph, 2024; Lapsey et al., 2024; Morabito et al., 2019; O’Neal, 2019; Page, 2008; Spohn et al., 2014; Tidmarsh et al., 2020). Given the consequences of trauma misperceptions, it is important to understand the factors that may contribute to/or prevent police from holding these misperceptions. Drawing on a sample of frontline police personnel, the current study sought to better understand the correlates of police trauma misperceptions. We found that gender, prior sexual violence training, rape myth acceptance and perceptions of the organization all play a role in shaping or preventing trauma misperceptions among frontline police personnel.

Before discussing our findings and their implications, it is important to note the limitations of the current study. First, our study draws on a particular sample of frontline police personnel from one state policing organization in Australia. As such, both organizational characteristics and the national context (e.g. national inquiries or media coverage such as Ting et al., 2020; Royal Commission, 2017) may have influenced the findings. Second, while our study incorporates both sworn police officers and unsworn police personnel, our sample only includes frontline personnel. Frontline police are an important sample to consider, given that they usually represent the first point of contact for a victim-survivor and provide the “gateway to justice” for victim-survivors of sexual violence (Kerstetter, 1990, p. 267). However, it is important to note that our results may not necessarily generalize to more specialist police populations (e.g. detectives or investigators). Third, our study involves a secondary analysis of data collected for an evaluation. As such, there are limitations with our measures and design. For example, our measure of police culture is limited to a proxy measure of perceived peer attitudes. Similarly, our measure of police perceptions of their organization does not capture actual policies and procedures of the organization, nor can we compare across organizations using our data ^[6]. Fourth, the survey revealed limited information about the types of training that respondents had engaged with (see footnote 3 for more information). Future research could provide a more thorough exploration of training type and mode when seeking to understand the influence of sexual violence training on police attitudes and behaviour. Fifth, our study is based on cross-sectional survey data. We are therefore unable to demonstrate causal effects.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, our study had a low response rate. It is therefore possible that response bias has impacted the results of this study. That being said, our sample was approximately 56% male and the average length of service represented (13 years) was similar to prior research in this field (e.g. Lapsey et al., 2025). Moreover, as Nix et al. (2019, p. 531, 544) explain “[g]iven the many barriers to surveying police officers, it would be reasonable to expect relatively low response rates in police surveys” and “research has demonstrated that low response rates are typically only weakly related to nonresponse bias”.

While our findings should be interpreted with caution, our study provides important insights into the under-researched field of police trauma misperceptions. As explained above, only three prior studies have sought to unpack the antecedents of police trauma misperceptions (see Ask, 2010; Franklin et al., 2020). These studies show that sexual violence training and rape myth acceptance are important correlates of trauma misperceptions. Our study supports these findings. We found that recently completing sexual violence training was associated with reduced trauma misperceptions among the police personnel in our sample. We also found that police personnel with higher rape myth acceptance were more likely to misperceive victim-survivor trauma.

Our finding that sexual violence training can improve police understanding of trauma and potentially improve police responses to sexual violence aligns with a recent systematic review undertaken by Lapsey et al. (2024). Lapsey et al. (2024) identified 31 studies of the effect of sexual violence training on police officers. Through a meta-analysis, they found that sexual violence training improved police attitudes toward sexual violence (across a range of outcome measures including rape myth acceptance), concluding that training that targets misinformation in particular “has the potential to reshape how police interpret survivor behavior, and improve how they engage with survivors during the on-scene response and follow-up investigation stages of a sexual assault case” (Lapsey et al., 2024, p. 10).

While our study provides further evidence that both training and prior experience with sexual violence cases can improve perceptions of victim-survivors of sexual violence, it is important to note that our measure of training only accounted for a small proportion (1%) of the variance in our dependent variable trauma misperceptions. We also did not drill down to consider the types of sexual violence training participants may have completed (e.g. face-to-face or online, length of training, content etc.). We did, however, find that rape myth acceptance explained the largest proportion of variance in trauma misperceptions (16.5%). This suggests that training which seeks to unwind rape myths specifically, may be particularly important to reduce police trauma misperceptions. This has been shown in prior research. For example, McKee et al. (2020) evaluated the effect of a 4-h training program on rape myth acceptance. They found that the training influenced frontline officers’ perceptions of rape myths (and specifically the ‘she lied’ scale as used in the current study) but there were some variations across rural and urban officers. To better understand the types of training that will be most efficacious, future research should focus on examining training that targets rape myths and trauma misperceptions with consideration for the training modalities, content and training duration that work best (Lapsey et al., 2024).

In addition to training and rape myth acceptance, our study also sought to extend prior research, by considering potential organizational influences on police trauma misperceptions. We found that police personnel who reported their fellow police “make negative comments about victim-survivors of sexual violence” were more likely to hold trauma misperceptions. We also found that this effect disappeared when adding rape myth acceptance to our model. This points to a cultural dimension of trauma misperception and rape myth development. That is, those who experience their peers viewing victim-survivors of sexual violence in a negative light were more likely to hold rape myths and, perhaps subsequently, trauma misperceptions.

Interestingly, and perhaps relatedly, we also found gender was a persistent predictor of trauma misperceptions, with male police personnel more likely to misperceive trauma compared to female police. This result held, even when accounting for sexual violence training and rape myth acceptance. This suggests that, to improve responses to victim-survivors of sexual violence, more should be done to tackle cultures of sexism in policing. Recent inquiries into a culture of sexism and misogyny in policing, particularly in the UK, have resulted in increased academic attention devoted to shifting the policing culture. For example, in her recent review of the literature and critique of sexism in UK policing, Turner (2024, p. 279) recommends that change can be made through “a review of policy and law, use of education, leadership changes, reform to the Police Complaints and Discipline system, male peer support and more-effective whistleblowing processes.” In another study, Wire and Flanagan (2024) undertook a review of the extant literature, coupled with a workshop involving staff from police professional standards to explore this issue. As a result, Wire and Flanagan (2024) identified 220 behaviors related to sexism in policing. In order to shift the culture, Wire and Flanagan (2024, p. 416) recommended organizations target four behavior types: (1) “Officers and staff not exhibiting everyday sexism or misogyny in the workplace”, (2) “Supervisors having conversations when they witness or become aware of indicators which suggest sexism and misogyny is occurring within their own teams”, (3) “Colleagues acting when they witness everyday sexism and misogyny in the workplace”, (4) “Victims of sexism and misogyny in the workplace raising the behavior with their supervisor, HR, PS, or via other official channels where appropriate”. Thus, in addition to training to improve responses to sexual violence, police organizations can focus on cultural changes tackling sexist and misogynistic cultures.

Also relating to the organizational context, we found that police personnel who believed their “organization adequately considers the needs of victims of sexual violence” were more likely to hold trauma misperceptions. While we would have expected less supportive organizational behaviors would result in more misperceptions, we see the opposite. One explanation for this finding is that those who hold trauma misperceptions may consider their organization is doing an adequate job because they do not understand the effect of trauma; that is, a more in-depth understanding of trauma and victim needs would allow a more critical consideration of organizational capabilities. Alternatively, it may be that when the organization adequately considers the needs of victims, police personnel may become complacent. Research in other fields suggests workplace complacency is linked to increases in workplace accidents (e.g. Årstad and Aven, 2017). Framed in the current context, it may be that when police personnel consider the organization to be sufficiently supporting victims of sexual violence, there is no need to examine one’s own behavior. More research is needed to unpack the causal ordering of these variables and the mechanisms that may explain these relationships.

As a final point of discussion, our study builds upon trauma misperception research previously undertaken in the US (Franklin et al., 2020; Lapsey et al., 2025) and Sweden (Ask, 2010). We found that police trauma misperceptions persist beyond these contexts, this time in a sample of Australian police. We also identified some similarities and differences in our results when comparing across contexts. Specifically, we found that women, police personnel who had completed sexual violence training in the past 12 months, and those less supportive of rape myths were less likely to misperceive trauma. These results are consistent with US research (Franklin et al., 2020; Lapsey et al., 2025) ^[7], which revealed similar patterns. The relationship between sexual violence training and reduced police trauma misperceptions also held in Sweden (Ask, 2010). Together, these results suggest that there are cross-cultural consistencies in the formation of police trauma misperceptions and that some protective factors that buffer against police trauma misperceptions are consistent across national contexts. Interestingly, and in contrast to results from the US (i.e. Franklin et al., 2020; Lapsey et al., 2025), “years of service” did not predict trauma misperceptions in our study. It may be that the composition of our sample (i.e. frontline personnel only) attenuated the relationship between years of service and trauma misperceptions.

While rates of sexual violence remain high globally (World Health Organisation, 2025), attaining justice in these cases is a less common occurrence. Victim-survivors who choose to report to the police face barriers to justice, including not being believed by the police and the courts (Stanko and Hohl, 2018; Temkin and Krahé, 2008; Wieberneit et al., 2024). Police trauma misperceptions are one source of disbelief. Trauma misperceptions occur when police (and other criminal justice professionals) incorrectly connect victim behaviors or emotional affect with victim credibility or deception (Franklin et al., 2020; Lapsey et al., 2025; Tidmarsh and Hamilton, 2020). These credibility concerns can lead to case attrition and victim retraumatization (McQueen et al., 2021; Wieberneit et al., 2024).

To address this problem, our study examined the correlates of trauma misperceptions among police. Our findings suggest that training that addresses rape myths and misconceptions will help improve police attitudes toward victim-survivors of sexual violence. Our findings also highlight the correlation between organizational culture and practices and trauma misperceptions. Future research should further examine the role of organizational context and training in preventing trauma misperceptions with a view to improving victim-survivor experiences with the criminal justice system.

The author/s wish to acknowledge the support and assistance from an anonymous Australian Policing Organization in undertaking this research. The views expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of this organization and any errors of omission or commission are the responsibility of the author/s.