Under the radar: policing non-violent domestic abuse in the US and UK

Abstract

Physical violence is but one of many tools that may be used to gain greater power within intimate relationships, yet the legal response has been critiqued for failing to recognise and respond to the full spectrum of abusive behaviours, such as coercive control. Using a sample of police officers from the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK), the current study utilises hypothetical vignettes to assess police officers' perceptions of domestic abuse, including those incidents that are not necessarily physically violent, but involve stalking and other coercive, controlling behaviours that are harmful and require intervention. Within-and between-country similarities and differences were analysed. Findings revealed that the majority of officers in both countries possessed a good level of understanding of domestic abuse and how they should respond to itamidst and beyond the physical violence. However, our analysis of both quantitative and qualitative data also showed that the use of physical violence is at the forefront of many officers' expectations about domestic abuse, and that when physical violence is absent, the police response is less proactive. Our study finds some support for the idea that non-physical abuse does go "under the radar" to some extent for some officers, and that this is more the case for American officers than their British counterparts. Findings are discussed in terms of context of the research sites and implications for policy, practice and future research. ARTICLE HISTORY

Recording of offences on police domestic violence call outs

“…DV arrest policies have been widely studied, whereas literature on other police responses and their effects, as well as results from other than Anglo-Saxon countries, are more difficult to obtain. In the UK a positive action policy has been deployed instead of arrest policies (Robinson et al 2016). In the Finnish context, in which this study was conducted, a pro-or mandatory arrest policy concerning DV call outs does not exist.…”

The “Golden Thread”: Coercive Control and Risk Assessment for Domestic Violence

“…Previous research has shown that police officers tend to prioritize indicators of physical violence when assessing risk, and in particular whether there has been injurious violence during the incident to which they have been deployed (Robinson et al, 2015(Robinson et al, , 2016. A major inspection of the police response to domestic violence in England and…”

“…If, however, the typical profile of abuse is coercive control that may or may not involve regular physical assaults, then existing risk assessment tools may contribute to a proportion of high risk cases staying 'under the radar' (Robinson, Pinchevsky & Guthrie, 2015). Also of concern would be the issue of 'false positives'.…”

Using a Vignette in Qualitative Research to Explore Police Perspectives of a Sensitive Topic: “Honor”-Based Crimes and Forced Marriages

“…Vignettes are also useful for examining attitudes and beliefs about complex topics such as aging (Schoenberg & Ravdal, 2000), date rape (Sleed et al, 2002), disabilities (Rizvi, 2019), drug injections and HIV/AIDS (Hughes, 1998), drug use and treatment services (Jenkins et al, 2010), family obligations (Finch, 1987), parenting (Bradury-Jones et al, 2014), and violence among young people in care homes (Barter & Renold, 2000). In a recent study, Robinson et al (2016) employed hypothetical scenarios to survey police officers' perceptions of violent and nonviolent domestic abuse incidents in the USA and UK. To my knowledge, this is the first study to use a vignette method to elicit police perspectives on HBCs and FMs within the context of DV in Canada.…”