Police Responses to Wife Beating - Neglect of a Crime of Violence

• NCJ Number: 94019
• Journal: Journal of Criminal Justice Volume: 12 Issue: 3 Dated: (1984) Pages: 277-288
• Author(s): S E Brown
• Date Published: 1984
• Length: 12 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Earlier version presented at the Annual Meeting of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, San Antonio, Texas, March 24, 1983

Annotation

The paper reports an analysis of the women's perceptions of police responses to their victimization, their feelings towards self, and their willingness to pursue mobilization of the law in their own behalf.

Abstract

Data were collected from women seeking admission to a spouse abuse shelter in a small southern city. The questionnaire which they completed requested demographics and a wide variety of attitudinal data. It was reported that the police rarely made referrals to helping agencies and that the most common police action was to 'talk' to the assaulter/batterer. Victims' feelings toward self were not nearly as negative overall in this sample as is typically assumed of abused women. Some support was found for a series of hypotheses that positive police responses enhance the victims' self-image and encourage them to seek mobilization of the law. (Author abstract)