Family Violence And Police Response

Police response to incidents of intimate partner violence can be critical. This volume investigates the elements in the institutional, legal and organizational context that are relevant for police response to incidents in the realm of the private sphere and whether there exists a relation with the reporting of such incidents by victims. Addressing this complex question requires insights from research, policy and practice and, as such, any conclusions will have implications for each of these fields. This volume addresses issues that are key elements in the relationship between the (legal) response to family violence and the reporting by victims. These issues concern societal and legal definitions of family violence employed in research, policy making and legal practice; how the legislation of various countries covers violence in the private sphere; the way the police deal with reported incidents of intimate partner violence; and the role that other interventions play in the response to and combat of family violence and intimate partner violence.

Drawing on cases, Stark identifies the problems with our current approach to domestic violence, outlines the components of coercive control, and then uses this alternate framework to analyse the cases of battered women charged with criminal offenses directed at their abusers.

The historical context of family violence is explored, as well as the various forms of violence, their prevalence in specific stages of life, and responses to it made by the criminal justice system and other agencies. The linkage among child abuse, partner violence and elder abuse is scrutinized, and the usefulness of the life-course approach is couched in terms of its potential effect on policy implications; research methods that recognize the importance of life stages, trajectories, and transitions; and crime causation theories that can be enhanced by it.

This document summarizes the results of a workshop held for police trainers to begin the work of determining the kind of training competencies that would be needed to prepare the police officer to intervene effectively in all dimensions of family violence. Results of a survey of family violence professionals are also given. The document describes police officer competencies, investigative barriers and special challenges, and new approaches to police training in violence toward children, women, seniors, and persons with disabilities. Other findings discussed include issues relating to the delivery of quality police service, the implications of an inter-disciplinary approach for police training, implications of the community-based policing approach in the area, and recommendations for policing services offered to vulnerable sectors. A model training syllabus is also included.

Domestic abuse is a national emergency: one in four Australian women has experienced violence from a man she was intimate with. But too often we ask the wrong question: why didn’t she leave? We should be asking: why did he do it? Investigative journalist Jess Hill puts perpetrators – and the systems that enable them – in the spotlight. See What You Made Me Do is a deep dive into the abuse so many women and children experience – abuse that is often reinforced by the justice system they trust to protect them. Critically, it shows that we can drastically reduce domestic violence – not in generations to come, but today. Combining forensic research with riveting storytelling, See What You Made Me Do radically rethinks how to confront the national crisis of fear and abuse in our homes. ‘A shattering book: clear-headed and meticulous, driving always at the truth’—Helen Garner ‘One Australian a week is dying as a result of domestic abuse. If that was terrorism, we’d have armed guards on every corner.’ —Jimmy Barnes ‘Confronting in its honesty this book challenges you to keep reading no matter how uncomfortable it is to face the profound rawness of people’s stories. Such a well written book and so well researched. See What You Made Me Do sheds new light on this complex issue that affects so many of us.’—Rosie Batty

This book explores the potential of domestic abuse data to assess the level of harm caused to victims and the amount of resources required to respond to it. Policing domestic abuse has become a major activity for the police service in England and Wales. Part of the police strategy is to gather hundreds of thousands of detailed records about victims and suspects – the single largest set of domestic abuse records available, but one that to date has largely unexplored by researchers. In this volume, Matthew Bland and Barak Ariel analyse three substantial datasets taken from police forces across the country and ask: · Can police data be used to derive meaningful insight? · How should we use these data to measure harm? · Just how much domestic abuse involves a repeat victim? · Does abuse get more serious over time? · Can serious domestic abuse be predicted before it occurs? This volume illustrates the scale of the challenge the police and other agencies face with reducing domestic abuse. A small proportion of individuals generate a majority of harm; this book argues that police records offer opportunities to identify these individuals before the harm occurs. Demonstrating that statistical techniques can be used to profile domestic abuse to target harm reduction strategies more precisely and even identify a sizable proportion of serious cases before they occur, this volume will be of interest to law enforcement officials, policing researchers, and policy makers interested in reducing the phenomenon of domestic abuse.