Corruption among government security forces and sexual violence against civilians

Does corruption within the police and military increase the likelihood that government security forces will be associated with sexual violence against civilians? I conduct a cross-national analysis of the sexual violence that is perpetrated by government security forces in peace and war. The dependent variable is a dichotomous measure of whether or not there were reports of sexual violence by government security forces. I conduct a binary probit estimation from 2005 to 2008 and 2011 that builds on the work of previous scholars who found that economic corruption could increase the likelihood of sexual violence. Data for my independent variables comes from the Transparency International Global Corruption Barometer and measures the perceived corruption within police and military institutions respectively. I find that police corruption increases the likelihood of sexual violence demonstrating that government security forces who can operate with wider discretion and greater opportunity for violence are more likely to commit sexual violence against civilians.