The Crown Prosecution Service, Police Culture, Policies and Practices on Domestic Violence.
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- Date Submitted: 01/04/2011 02:32 AM
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The Crown Prosecution Service, Police Culture, Policies and Practices on Domestic Violence.
Across the world the police have a dissatisfactory record when it comes to dealing with domestic violence. In recent years the police in England and Wales have done a great deal to improve dealing with this crime, but have they done enough? Firstly it is necessary to consider this issue from a historical perspective, secondly, the gap between changes in policy and practice and finally, the likely impact of relatively recent initiatives.
According to Binder & Meeker (1992) ‘Prior to this time (before domestic violence was placed on the social and political agenda in the 1970’s) domestic violence was seen as a private, family matter and, except in cases of extreme violence and injury, the law was not involved in its management.’
Then Hoyle (1998) recorded that ‘police assigned low priority to domestic violence calls and rarely responded to these disputes. Furthermore, even when the violence would have justified such action, police seldom made arrests or used other criminal sanctions to manage the issue. Move over, this research indicated that women who made contact with police were invariably left dissatisfied or further traumatised by the inappropriate or uninformed police responses.’
In response to these findings campaigns were focused on improving the police response by increasing police powers, with the objective of higher arrest and prosecution rates.
These campaigns were based on the assumption that crime could be reduced by arrest and sentencing policies aimed at deterring potential offenders.
These campaigns have been every effective in changing community attitudes, legislation and public policy concerning domestic violence. Domestic violence is now, in theory, recognised as a ‘real crime’ and the fact that it occurs in the home does not detract from its status as a criminal offence.
Although police culture has to derive from...
Across the world the police have a dissatisfactory record when it comes to dealing with domestic violence. In recent years the police in England and Wales have done a great deal to improve dealing with this crime, but have they done enough? Firstly it is necessary to consider this issue from a historical perspective, secondly, the gap between changes in policy and practice and finally, the likely impact of relatively recent initiatives.
According to Binder & Meeker (1992) ‘Prior to this time (before domestic violence was placed on the social and political agenda in the 1970’s) domestic violence was seen as a private, family matter and, except in cases of extreme violence and injury, the law was not involved in its management.’
Then Hoyle (1998) recorded that ‘police assigned low priority to domestic violence calls and rarely responded to these disputes. Furthermore, even when the violence would have justified such action, police seldom made arrests or used other criminal sanctions to manage the issue. Move over, this research indicated that women who made contact with police were invariably left dissatisfied or further traumatised by the inappropriate or uninformed police responses.’
In response to these findings campaigns were focused on improving the police response by increasing police powers, with the objective of higher arrest and prosecution rates.
These campaigns were based on the assumption that crime could be reduced by arrest and sentencing policies aimed at deterring potential offenders.
These campaigns have been every effective in changing community attitudes, legislation and public policy concerning domestic violence. Domestic violence is now, in theory, recognised as a ‘real crime’ and the fact that it occurs in the home does not detract from its status as a criminal offence.
Although police culture has to derive from...