Law Enforcement Officers' Perceptions of Same Sex Domestic Violence: Reason for Cautious Optimism

• NCJ Number: 209930
• Journal: Journal of Interpersonal Violence Volume: 17 Issue: 7 Dated: July 2002 Pages: 760-772
• Author(s): Jane A. Younglove; Marcee G. Kerr; Corey J. Vitello
• Date Published: July 2002
• Length: 13 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study tested the hypothesis that police officers in a midsize central California city would have differing perceptions of four versions of a domestic violence scenario according to the sexual orientation of the couple involved.

Abstract

The study included 82 police officers from all 3 shifts in various substations throughout the city. At the officers' daily briefings, researchers introduced the study without revealing that it was designed to assess variance in perception about same-sex domestic violence. Researchers composed and field-tested a scenario that depicted an incident of domestic violence to which two fictional police officers were responding. Four versions of the scenario were crafted to correspond to four groups. For three of the groups, the last sentence of the scenario was varied to indicate the sexual orientation of the couple as lesbian, gay male, or heterosexual. For the fourth group, the last sentence did not indicate sexual orientation. For the four scenarios, officers were asked to indicate the degree of likelihood of the following outcomes: arrest of one or both partners, emergency shelter referral, aggression against the officers, and other outcomes. Questionnaires were distributed in a manner that ensured relatively equal distribution of the four versions and prevented any officer from noting that his/her neighbor had a different version of the scenario. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was performed to reveal any significant differences between and among the groups in terms of likely outcomes of the scenarios. Findings showed no differences in how police perceived a scenario of domestic violence based on the sexual orientation of the involved couple. This suggests that any homophobia among the officers did not deter them from an appropriate law enforcement response to domestic violence that involved same-sex couples. 3 tables and 14 references