Police–victim engagement in building a victim empowerment approach to intimate partner violence cases

Intimate partner violence (IPV) has been highlighted as a priority for UK governments and criminal justice agencies since the 1990s. However, whilst generating significant policy and procedural responses, the overall impact continues to be criticised. This paper examines contemporary approaches to IPV identification and response, highlighting the limitations within victim engagement and empowerment. It then moves on to specific developments and theories in victimology, demonstrating how research into victim engagement is emerging and could be utilised in practice to enhance victim empowerment. It argues that policy and procedure based upon an enhanced victim empowerment approach would be necessary in striving for positive criminal justice outcomes and for increasing victim satisfaction.     

A Comparison of Men and Women Arrested for Domestic Violence: Who Presents the Greater Threat?

Recent increases in the number of women arrested for domestic violence raise important questions about implementation of proarrest policies, equivalency of intimate partner aggression across genders, and management of female domestic violence offenders. This study compares demographic characteristics, criminal history variables, and the past domestic violence history of men (n = 5,578) and women (n = 1,126) arrested for domestic assault against a heterosexual intimate partner. Using victim reported information and data collected by local criminal justice agencies, we found that female arrestees were significantly less likely than males to have histories that warrant concern regarding the potential for future violence. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Victim impact statements and the role of the South African criminologist

This article explores the developments in the plight of victims as well as the professional role of the South African criminologists in offering assistance to victims of crime by compiling victim impact statements on behalf of victims. The VIS has a significant contribution to make in a stage of the judicial process where acknowledgement of a victim takes place after a judgment or a guilty conviction. During the trial process a victim in legal terms does not exist. It is only at this final stage before sentencing that the court will view the complainant as a victim. It is imperative that the complainant＇s voice is heard as a victim-one who has suffered loss regardless of its shape and form. The all encompassing contribution of the VIS lies in its empowering nature due to the fact that it also can contribute to crime prevention by lowering the crime rate and reducing the cyclical nature of violence and crime.     

Victim Policy Transfer: Learning From Each Other

This paper looks at the recent introduction of victim impact statements in several European countries. It asks whether victim impact statements are a positive addition to victim policy and practice in Europe and examines the challenges of adapting to the civil legal tradition a tool that was developed in a common law country.     

Gender Bias in Attributions of Responsibility for Abuse

The bulk of previous research investigating attributions of responsibility in victimization scenarios have portrayed the assailant as male and the victim as female. The present study varied gender of the participant, gender of the assailant, and gender of the victim in order to examine gender bias in attributions of responsibility in abuse scenarios. Male and female participants were presented with scenarios depicting an abusive interaction between two males, two females, or a male and a female character and then made judgements of responsibility either with or without the narratives present. The results indicated that attributions made by females were biased against male victims of a male assailant when judging actions of the assailant. Attributions made by females and, to a lesser degree, attributions made by males were biased against the victim when the assailant and the participant were of the same gender and attributions of assailants' actions were made without the narrative present. In the analysis of attributions of actions of the victim, males attributed more responsibility to male than female victims. It is concluded that gender of all parties may be an important consideration when judging responsibility in victimization scenarios.     

Patterns of reported parent-child abuse and police response

The present study examines the level and patterns of parent-child abuse incidents that come to the attention of the police. It also addresses the response of law enforcement to such incidents in an attempt to discover the determinants of official intervention. The findings indicate that both family status and gender influence the patterns of parent-child abuse reported to the police. Multivariate analysis revealed that the arrest decision was influenced most strongly by the seriousness of the incident, as measured by offense severity and extent of injury to the victim. The likelihood of arrest was also affected by the race of the offender, but the influence of this variable was mediated by the seriousness of the offense. The study highlights the role that the value system surrounding the family plays in the reporting of parent-child abuse incidents and in the police decision to intervene.     

Risk assessment for intimate partner violence: how can the police assess risk?

ABSTRACT

The use of risk assessment tools by frontline police for intimate partner violence has the potential to make a difference to policing. In this paper, the key aspects of intimate partner violence risk assessment are outlined critically with a particular emphasis on how they can be used in practice. Two, evidence-based, exemplars are reviewed. These are the Ontario Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment (ODARA), an example of the actuarial approach, and the Brief Spousal Assault Form for the Evaluation of Risk (B-SAFER), an example of the structured professional judgement approach. In addition, the victim giving his or her own appraisal of risk is discussed. All three approaches have some validity when administered properly but practical factors reduce this validity. The content of the risk assessment tools are outlined and practical concerns such as training, time to administer, reliability, validity, and the overlap of intimate partner violence with other forms of offending are discussed. A balanced overview of the strengths, weaknesses and future potential of intimate partner violence risk assessment is provided.     

Domestic Violence Victims Support Mandatory Reporting: For Others

Five states now have mandatory reporting laws when a victim of domestic violence is identified in a clinical setting, and many other states are considering such legislation. Advocates for battered women have frequently warned that abused women may not wish mandatory reporting laws. Published data derived from the opinions, wishes, and beliefs of women victims of domestic violence have been noticeably lacking. This study presents a preliminary study of 45 abused women. Results indicate that women victims overwhelmingly support mandatory reporting laws. In an apparent paradox, however, they were much less certain that mandatory reporting would have been helpful to them in their specific case.     

“To This Day She Continues to Struggle with the Terror Imposed upon Her”: Rape Narratives in Victim Impact Statements

This study locates the victim impact statements of raped women in the sociolegal context of significant sentencing law reforms introduced in Canada to address an ascendant victim’s rights movement. We examine 38 reported sentencing decisions in sexual assault cases in Ontario, Canada (1999–2010). Our objectives are to discern (a) whether the archetype of the ideal victim continues to influence juridical discourse after conviction and (b) what narratives of harm intersect with sentencing objectives and aggravating factors. Our findings suggest women express profound fear of re-victimization and traumatic effects of sexual violence regardless of the relational context of their rape experience. Most surprisingly, our data show sentencing judges view the sexual assault of an intoxicated rape victim as an aggravating factor. Future consideration for victim impact statements in sexual assault cases is discussed.     

Pregnancy as a Stimulus for Domestic Violence

Data collected from a domestic violence prevention and treatment program were analyzed to determine the relationship between female reproductive status and violent incidents. Both the frequency and severity of male initiated violence against women were twice as high when they were pregnant. These results are discussed in the context of an evolutionary perspective on domestic violence.     

Specialized Domestic Violence Courts

Abstract

The multimethod study assesses the perceptions of specialized domestic violence courts' processes with victims' experiences as the central focus. Perceptions of the traditional courts and specialized domestic violence courts are compared among victims, courtroom police, attorneys, judges and victim advocates. Domestic violence education among attorneys, judges, and victim advocates is also compared. Despite the intended improvements with the specialized court model, victims report similar problems in both court models. Safety and victims support among respondents is mixed. Professionals from the specialized court receive no more domestic violence education than those from the general court. Victims' and courtroom police recommendations are presented.     

A HEAVY THUMB ON THE SCALE: THE EFFECT OF VICTIM IMPACT EVIDENCE ON CAPITAL DECISION MAKING*

The past several decades have seen the emergence of a movement in the criminal justice system that has called for a greater consideration for the rights of victims. One manifestation of this movement has been the “right” of victims or victims' families to speak to the sentencing body through what are called victim impact statements about the value of the victim and the full harm that the offender has created. Although victim impact statements have been a relatively noncontroversial part of regular criminal trials, their presence in capital cases has had a more contentious history. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned previous decisions and explicitly permitted victim impact testimony in capital cases in Payne v. Tennessee (1991) . The dissenters in that case argued that such evidence only would arouse the emotions of jurors and bias them in favor of imposing death. A body of research in behavioral economics on the “identifiable victim effect” and the “identifiable wrongdoer effect” would have supported such a view. Using a randomized controlled experiment with a death‐eligible sample of potential jurors and the videotape of an actual penalty trial in which victim impact evidence (VIE) was used, we found that these concerns about VIE are perhaps well placed. Subjects who viewed VIE testimony in the penalty phase were more likely to feel negative emotions like anger, hostility, and vengeance; were more likely to feel sympathy and empathy toward the victim; and were more likely to have favorable perceptions of the victim and victim's family as well as unfavorable perceptions of the offender. We found that these positive feelings toward the victim and family were in turn related to a heightened risk of them imposing the death penalty. We found evidence that part of the effect of VIE on the decision to impose death was mediated by emotions of sympathy and empathy. We think our findings open the door for future work to put together better the causal story that links VIE to an increased inclination to impose death as well as explore possible remedies.     

EFFECT OF SUSPECT RACE ON OFFICERS’ ARREST DECISIONS*

Many respondents to opinion surveys say that the citizen's race influences how police officers treat the public, yet recent expert social‐science panels have declared that research findings are too contradictory to form a conclusion on whether American police are biased against racial minorities. We perform a meta‐analysis of quantitative research that estimates the effect of race on the police decision to arrest. Screening nearly 4,500 potential sources, we analyze the results based on 27 independent data sets that generated 40 research reports (both published and unpublished) that permitted an estimate of the effect size of the suspect's race on the probability of arrest. The meta‐analysis shows with strong consistency that minority suspects are more likely to be arrested than White suspects. Depending on the method of estimation, the effect size of race varied between 1.32 and 1.52. Converting the race effect size to probabilities shows that compared with the average probability in these studies of a White being arrested (.20), the average probability for a non‐White was calculated at .26. The significant race effect persists when taking into account the studies’ variations in research methods and the nature of explanatory models used in the studies. Implications for future research are presented.     

The Influence of Legal Reform on the Probability of Arrest in Domestic Violence Cases

Using domestic violence incidence and arrest data from Maryland (1991–1997), this research examines whether the proportion of incidents that result in arrest increased due to a legislative initiative implemented in 1994 and, if so, whether this change is uniform across different types of offenders (race and gender) and offense characteristics. Using interrupted time‐series analysis (ARIMA), we observe an increase in both the number of incidents reported to police and the percent of reported cases resulting in arrest. The legislative intervention has a significant positive impact on arrest likelihood above and beyond the increase over time for the state as a whole. While arrest probabilities increased across the board for males and females, African American and Whites, the ARIMA models do not suggest that the legislation differentially impacted arrest probabilities for these groups.     

Battered Women and the Criminal Justice System: The Service Providers' Perspective

This article reports on a study of the service providers' perspective on what battered women face when entering the criminal justice system. Victim non-co-operation with the system can manifest itself in various ways and at several points in the process. The article begins with a review of the available literature on the criminal justice system's responses to women battering. Then the experiences and perceptions of service providers in Ohio concerning these responses are described, and, consequently, the findings according to factors which may affect service providers responses are analyzed. The article concludes with an assessment of the policy implications of the system's response to women battering.