A) POLICING

Belknap, Joanne. "Law Enforcement Officer's Attitudes about the Appropriate Responses to Woman Battering." International Review of Victimology, 4 (1995): 47-62.

Arguing that in order to understand police responses to woman battering, research must focus on the police officers' attitudes about arrest and battering, rather than simply the deterrent aspect of arrest, Belknap found that among the 324 law enforcement officers from a large Midwestern U.S. metropolitan area she studied, there was a definite preference to refer spousal assaults to mediation rather than arrest, and generally there was a tendency for officers to view women who claim to have been battered as non-credible and unworthy of police time. Generally, Belknap found that police officers preferred not to criminalize "woman battering" and did not take the concerns of the women seriously, instead they felt that arrest violated the rights of the batterer. As well, Belknap suggested that there is a definite correlation between attitudes towards assaults against women in the home and police action, and that these attitudes did fluctuate according to department affiliation, race, and sex of the police officer. Given these variables, Belknap emphasizes that in order for women battering to be taken seriously by law enforcement officers, a "departmental subculture" must be created, "in which recruitment and training is directed to a fairer and more efficient response to the problem of woman battering" (p.59).

Hannah-Moffat's research was in response to the Metro Woman Abuse Protocol Project which was developed, in 1991 to assess how the criminal justice system in Ontario was responding to woman abuse. This project brought together senior managers in the criminal justice system (police, Crown attorneys, courts administration, probation, and parole), victim services, survivors, and community agencies in a collaborative consultation to develop a number of criminal justice protocols. Focussing on the Parkdale and Etobicoke districts of Metro Toronto and using a combination of questionnaires and seventeen open-ended interviews with both male and female members of these police forces representing a variety of ages, races, and years of experience, Hannah-Moffat examined the perception and attitudes of some police officers towards one of the protocols developed -- the pro-charge protocol in domestic violence cases.

Hannah-Moffat analyzed the responses to six questions: what criteria police used to make a charge; the problems they encountered when responding to a "domestic" call; what their perceptions were of the victim and her wishes; whether they thought that female officers were more effective in responding to "domestics"; how officers viewed the court process; and how officers viewed a pro-charge policy.

Hannah-Moffat found that while few (two of seventeen interviewed) actually complied with the pro-charge protocol, all saw it as an infringement on the discretionary powers given them under the Criminal Code. This resulted in overt or covert resistance on the part of the officers to its implementation. In part the resistance to charge was found to be a result of the belief held by many officers that "domestics" were "non-legal" problems that should be resolved through non-legal approaches. Hence, the police officers resented having to perform what they perceived as "duties of a counsellor" -- a role that they were not trained to do.

The "most disturbing conclusion" of the research, Hannah-Moffat claims, was the negative and suspicious view the majority of officers held of the victim. Officers generally portrayed the victims "as weak, vulnerable, unreliable and uncooperative" (pp. 45-46). Women were often perceived as "reluctant witnesses" who could not be relied on to support the charge and testify. As a result, officers tended not to charge in cases where the victims' claims of abuse were not substantiated by visible physical evidence. This assumption that women would be "reluctant witnesses" also underlay what Hannah-Moffat maintained was the general reaction expressed by many of the police officers, namely, that responding to "domestics" is a waste of valuable police resources and time.

While Hannah-Moffat found that training on the dynamics of abusive relationships had been provided for the officers, the understanding and knowledge of these dynamics remained limited. Hannah-Moffat concluded that police officer compliance with the pro-charge protocol required a more effective training program on the dynamics woman abuse.

This report, the fifth in a series of annual reports, offers an analysis of incidents of violence and/or intimidation against women that came to the attention of the police department during the months of January and June, 1994. The report comprises an Introduction, Methodology section, analyses of incidents categorized by the type of offence committed, court dispositions by case, relevant Criminal Code sections, a Conclusion and four appendices (maps of incident locations, a breakdown of suspects by race, police responses to the policy and quantitative summaries of court dispositions for both months). A total of 219 cases (130 in January and 89 in June) were analyzed in terms of the following variables: type of crime committed (this covered a wide range of offences, from credit card theft to attempted murder, that fell under the broad rubric of violent or intimidating acts committed against a woman by a current or ex-partner); age, race, and sex of suspect; suspect's criminal record; previous abuse/victimization by the suspect; relationship between the suspect and victim; whether or not alcohol was involved; the presence of children during the incident; and whether the suspect was charged. (Where a suspect was charged with more than one offence, only the more serious offence was included in this data analysis.)

This report also outlines three general categories of reasons for not submitting a report to Crown Counsel: Contrary to Policy (police discretion; the victim merely wanted to make the police aware of the incident); Insufficient Evidence (lack of evidence to support a charge, even though police believed an offence occurred), and Evidence Refused (police believed offence occurred but victim/witness was unwilling to provide evidence; i.e., a statement). It is noteworthy that the author reports in the Conclusion that between 25% and 29% of the cases in 1994 were not forwarded to Crown Counsel. These statistics raise questions not only with respect to the role of police discretion and its impact on effectively implementing a mandatory arrest policy, but also with respect to victims' reluctance to provide evidence in such cases.

The results of this report have potentially critical implications for effectively implementing the Violence Against Women In Relationships Policy. This document will be of interest primarily to researchers, criminal justice personnel and some front-line workers.

In their evaluation of the application in London, Ontario of the Ontario policy on wife abuse, Jaffe, et al. found that there had been a dramatic increase in police laying charges in these cases; that the assumed reluctance of the victims to call the police in light of the pro-arrest nature of the policy did not materialize; and that overall, victims expressed a general satisfaction with police response. However police officers themselves were ambivalent generally and in some cases very pessimistic about the effectiveness of the policy. Much of the police skepticism about the effectiveness of the policy arose from their perception that the charges they were making were not being taken seriously by the courts.

This pilot study arose in response to concerns about police responses to women in violent relationships, and the implementation of the mandatory arrest component of the Violence Against Women In Relationships (VAWIR) policy. The study offers a feminist analysis and assessment of the effectiveness of the VAWIR policy in its first stage of implementation, from the perspective of front-line workers in the anti-violence movement. A survey instrument was constructed through a collaborative effort involving both front-line groups and academics. Forty-seven organizations (transition houses, sexual assault and women's centres) that provide services to women in violent relationships were contacted and invited to participate in the study. Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with the 45 organizations who agreed to take part in the study. A qualitative analysis of the survey data identified the needs, concerns, and issues of front-line workers vis-à-vis the policing of violence against women in relationships in the respondents' communities.

The results of the study suggest that although there is support for the Policy itself, front-line workers are critical of the inconsistent manner in which it is being implemented by police forces. A list of recommendations which offer a variety of pro-active strategies for strengthening and ensuring the enforcement of the Policy is also included in the study. This report will be of interest to police departments, front-line workers in the anti-violence movement, and researchers.

This report was compiled primarily as a means of verifying Police Services Division data on the dispositions of spousal assault incidents. The document comprises two major sections: (1) a detailed description of the Police Services Division's spousal assault database, which shows the nature and extent of spousal assault in British Columbia; and (2) a discussion of the results of a random survey of spousal assault incidents reported by police detachments throughout the province (excluding Vancouver, Victoria and Esquimalt), between 1993 and 1994. This report is concerned with (1) demonstrating the accuracy of the disposition data, and (2) confirming that both police and Crown counsel are following the Violence Against Women in Relationships policy, and consequently does not offer a feminist analysis of the findings.

This document will be of use to researchers and both public and private agencies in the community who have an interest in tracking the outcomes of wife assault cases.

This study, conducted in Delta, BC, examines police responses to breaches of peace bonds and civil restraining orders; specifically, it addresses enforcement practices, vis-à-vis protective orders. Drawing on a survey methodology in the form of self-reported information, questionnaires were administered to 45 police officers in order to assess the factors which influence police decisions to enforce protective court orders. The construction of the questionnaire was shaped by a feminist conceptual framework.

The results of the study indicate that: (1) breaches of protective orders - either criminal court orders or civil restraining orders - seldom result in the arrest of the offender; (2) the decision to arrest is often influenced more by the woman's actions than the offender's; (3) a woman's request that the police arrest her partner is ranked sixth out of 12 factors that prompt an officer to enforce an order; and (4) police were inclined to recommend civil restraining orders, rather than criminal court orders (peace bonds), even though the police demonstrated a noticeable reluctance to enforce the former type of protective orders. Based on a feminist interpretation of the results, the author concludes that police reluctance to enforce protective orders arises out of "their acceptance of patriarchal constructions of public and private wrongs" (1997:209). The research also demonstrates that neither gender nor rank is an important factor in influencing the decision to enforce protective orders. The results of this study have policy implications for more closely monitoring police responses to breaches of protective orders, evaluating the efficacy of civil restraining orders, and police training and education. This study will be of interest to feminist researchers, criminal justice personnel and policy makers, vis-à-vis enforcing protective orders, and to front-line staff in women's shelters and anti-violence organizations.

Adopting a sociologically-oriented, feminist approach, and focussing on the enforcement by the Delta B.C. Police Department of peace bonds, and restraining and other court orders aimed at securing a battered woman's safety, Rigakos analyzes the dynamics of patriarchal relations as they operate at the structural, institutional, subcultural, and individual levels. Investigated in his 1994 three-month study were the factors that determine police action or inaction when responding to breaches of these orders; how the police justify the decisions they made; the mechanisms through which the rationales for their decisions are formed; and how these rationales relate to "patriarchal formulations, held by society as a whole, of women, marriage, domesticity and crime."

Rigakos argues that while what he refers to as "the masculine occupational culture of the [Delta] police department" does not produce patriarchal attitudes, it does reproduce those found in society and that this reproduction has negative consequences for the safety of abused women. This is evident, he claims, in the conservative way in which police officers view women, family and marriage as reflected in their focus on explanations that excuse violent men. Battered women, on the other hand, were negatively stereotyped as "liars, manipulators and unreliable witnesses," and as the probable cause of the violence inflicted on them.

Although Rigakos found that the actual incidents of assaulted women failing to appear or refusing to testify were rare, the telling and retelling of these exceptional occurrences by police officers to each other reinforced this "battered woman as unreliable witness" stereotype as a norm in their minds. This false assumption that the battered woman would be a "reluctant witness" and not appear at trial, coupled with the perception that while they were doing everything they could to protect women, the other agencies in the system thwarted their efforts by not taking "spousal assault" cases seriously, became justifications for police inaction in arresting for breach of peace bonds and court orders.

This report describes a pilot study undertaken by the Vancouver Police Department to assess police response and effectiveness, primarily in the area of making referrals, in wife assault cases. Specifically, the study, grounded in a mainstream theoretical perspective, examined the following variables: (1) whether the police officers provided referrals to other support services; (2) whether the victims requested information about other services; (3) whether the victims received assistance from other social service agencies; (4) the victims' perceptions of their interactions with the police; and (5) whether the victims' situations improved after police intervention. The statistics from the 1995 Violence and Intimidation Against Women in Relationships report were used to contact a sample of 219 victims of spousal assault and to request their participation in this study. Trained female volunteers from the Vancouver Police Department's Victim Services Unit were able to conduct short, semi-structured telephone surveys with a total of 16% of the 219 individuals.

The results of the study have significant implications for police responses to wife assault cases, and the need to have individuals present who are trained both in crisis intervention and providing support and referrals to wife assault victims. The findings also suggest that a more timely follow-up in such cases would also be appropriate. The study will be of interest to researchers, front-line workers in the women's movement, criminal justice personnel, and staff in social service organizations.

This report, similar in structure and research methodology to the previous report, offers an analysis of 219 cases for January (105 incidents) and July (114 incidents), 1995. In an attempt to broaden the definition of violence in intimate relationships, the report also included cases in which the relationship between victim and offender was of a homosexual nature. In addition to the variables analyzed in the 1994 statistics, this report analyzed the number of times Vancouver Police Victim Services attended or was called by the police in each of the cases. The types of offences ranged from mischief to aggravated assault, and included cases of extortion and harassment. The number of cases not reported to Crown Counsel decreased to approximately 22% from between 25% and 29% in 1994.

This report follows the same research methodology and analysis as the previous two reports, and represents the seventh in a series of annual reports on this topic. Two hundred and fifty-three cases (118 and 135 in January and July, respectively) are analyzed for 1996. No new variables are added to the data analysis. The authors of the report do not provide any conclusions about whether an increasing number of cases are being forwarded to Crown Counsel for further processing through the criminal justice system.