MYHILL 2016 Police use of discretion in response to DV Flashcards
“Goldstein’s classic (1963) account of police discretion contrasted the ‘ideal’ of full enforcement of the law with the ‘reality’ that both police managers and frontline officers are required to use..
considerable discretion in discharging their roles”
“The need for discretion is, then, in part a consequence of the frontline officer being in reality ‘primarily a “peace officer” rather than a…
“law officer”’ (BANTON, 1964:127)
“Question of police discretion…hotly contested…in relation to…
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE”
Study of police responses to DV from the 1970s onwards documented the problems posed by the interaction of police discretion and the uniformed…
sexist attitudes of officers
(Police response 1970s onwards) many officers regarded DV as a civil matter and not something that the police should be involved with, saw it as ‘rubbish’ work to be afforded a low priority alongside…
‘real’ crime-focused activity
Recent years, development of a culture of ‘risk aversion’ in UK policing, which has been suggested has developed in part as a result of the extensive scrutiny and inspection regimes by bodies such as…
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC)
Suggestion that risk and managerialist cultures have shaped the way police respond to DV, such as the agreed…
defintion
DV = a high profile policy issue in England and Wales, exemplified by the Home Office’s announcement of legislation to criminalise CC. Such a law could pose a challenge to frontline officers in terms of…
recording accurately a ‘course of conduct’
Link to Skolnick’s 1966 ‘working personality’ and efficiency - issue of clear-up rates, many officers perceive that victims of DV are particularly likely to withdraw a complaint, resulting in an…
undetected crime
Characteristic of Police occupational culture - an over-focus on crime fighting and law enforcement may afford DV as a
low priority
Masculine ethos in policing may cause officers to perceive ambiguous situations from a…
male perspective
Westmarland (2001) describes a tendency for male officers to attempt to exert control over…
their female colleagues
Cuffing of domestic-related incidents. Cuffing is seen traditionally as downgrading the seriousness of a criminal offence, or concluding that the offence did not take place or is not worthy of…
police intervention
Cuffing of domestic-related incidents. Incentive for a call-taker to cuff a domestic-related incident is less clear, but could stem from(2)…
lack of understanding of the dynamics of DV
organizational imperative not to carry too many ‘open’ CAD logs
‘Quasi-cuffs’ describes cases where officers dealt - often thoroughly and satisfactorily - with one component of an incident, but ignored or failed to identify and address a possible..
domestic abuse element
Myhill’s findings show that police officers are required legitimately to use discretion in the invention and classification of incidents that may constitute DV.
There are numerous examples of domestic-related incidents (3):
Not being investigated thoroughly
Being misclassified
Being downgraded
(Myhill) it is is still possible for officers to minimise the seriousness of domestic-related incidents, or even make them disappear altogether. In that sense, frontline officers, in particular, influence to some degree (2)
what DV is
how police and their partner agencies respond to it
COY ET AL. 2012 - Research has show that civil issues such as child contact are used as means of continuing to…
exert control by coercive EX-partners
Requirement for police officers and staff from the control room, through the frontline and up the supervisory chain to use their discretion when…
interpreting and classifying cases of DV
ISSUES:
DV = difficult to get a ‘result’ as many victims do not support a
prosecution
ISSUES:
Resourcing - frontline officers writing up incidents after their shift, officers aren’t paid routinely for overtime, there is little incentive for them to investigate and document thoroughly a case they may regard as
‘low risk’
ISSUES:
Police knowledge of issue - some lacked basic understanding of CC abuse that would enable them to respond…
consistently and effectively and not regard it as being of no risk