A unique relationship exists between survivors of domestic violence and the law enforcement agencies tasked with responding to domestic violence incidents. It is a fraught relationship, one that is both built upon necessity and mistrust.
The necessity refers to the lack of alternative places to turn to when a survivor needs help, and the mistrust comes from law enforcement’s complete incapability, at least right now, to respond directly to survivors’ needs. Police officers, whether intentional or not, can act in ways that make it more of a safety risk for domestic violence victims, even though the police theoretically serve to protect all individuals. Therefore, it is our responsibility to understand why this is to improve resource accessibility for survivors.
How Are Police Officers Failing Survivors of Domestic Violence?
The nature of policing is so often contradictory to what domestic violence victims need to achieve relief or justice from their abusers. First, survivors frequently experience violence in the home and just want the violence to end. Police officers are trained to respond with brute force, excessive weapons-use, and other forms of violence, clearly the opposite of ending the violence.
Second, police officers are often not trained in how to conduct trauma-informed assessments of domestic violence incidents. Trauma-informed practices not only break down the intimidation barrier for survivors, it ultimately produces preferrable solutions for survivors to escape the violence in the home. Therefore, making an impact in a trauma-informed way can substantially influence a survivor’s trust in a person or institution.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, when police do respond to domestic violence incidents, history indicates they do so inadequately. According to a report from the National Domestic Violence Hotline, which includes survivors’ testimony, police often fail to investigate cases appropriately, refuse to arrest and much less prosecute perpetrators of violence, and engage in victim-blaming. These factors combined make it extremely difficult for survivors to entrust the police to bring them justice.
Statistics of Police Response to Domestic Violence Incidents
To give more context, the National Domestic Violence Hotline report surveyed victims who had never called the police and victims who had, with the purpose of illustrating some common concerns and fears across the participants. For victims who had never called the police, 70 percent reported fears that calling the police would make things worse, that the police would not prevent the offender from retaliating or not take seriously the victims’ pleadings for help. Fiifty-nine percent of the same group of participants were afraid the police would not believe them. For victims who had called the police in the past, 33 percent felt safer after the police were called, 50 percent felt no difference in safety, and 20 percent felt less safe. Forty-three percent of these participants felt the police had discriminated against them for not being a “perfect” victim, for neighborhoods they lived in, and for identity factors such as race and immigration status. Clearly, police need to gain a better understanding of partner abuse and sexual assault. Furthermore, police need to reduce their involvement in these kinds of cases because, ultimately, other agencies are better equipped to more compassionately deliver justice to survivors.
Turning the focus to one particular case, I think, will crystalize the need to immediately address this systemic issue. For the purposes of this examination, I will be reviewing the domestic violence mishandlings of the Chicago Police Department, some of which I’ve seen, albeit indirectly, through the clients I support as a paralegal. The Chicago Police Department, or CPD, has the second largest police department in the country, with operating funds of approximately $4 million per day, or 40 percent of the city’s total budget.
Additionally, according to data from the Department of Family & Support Services, domestic violence funding caps at just over $7 million total. In other words, the CPD budget is over 200 times that of the funds allocated to social services for survivors in Chicago. To add perspective, the city of San Francisco spends $8.5 million directly on specific programs and services for survivors. San Francisco has a population roughly one-third the size of Chicago. Perhaps most heartbreakingly, from 1988 to the present day, there have been more than 50,000 accusations of excessive force against CPD officers, only 1,719 of which have been disciplined.
Use of excessive force is more common against people of color, who also experience domestic violence at a higher rate. Therefore, this is a practical illustration of the statistic cited in the National Domestic Violence Hotline report: individuals who are predisposed to facing discrimination by police officers, for whatever identity characteristics predispose them, will be less likely to rely on law enforcement.
What are the Solutions?
The two biggest questions remaining, which will likely affect any sort of reform, is can law enforcement agencies successfully transition their practices from emphasis on brute force to utilizing a more victims first approach? Or is meaningful widespread police reform, while potentially useful, far beyond reach, implausible to even occur, and not nearly enough of an answer?
To answer, let us first postulate what sorts of police reform would need to take place. Advocates for a police-reform approach call for increased implicit bias, diversity, or sensitivity trainings designed to reduce racial and cultural biases. However, these trainings are not standardized across the board. In 2018, New York City launched a $4.5 million contract for training despite no standards for curriculum and no evaluation of training material. Similarly, Hawaii police are only required to watch a 30-minute video once a year.
Moreover, these kinds of training do nothing to address institutional biases and systemic racism. An individual officer may be willing to confront their own biases, but the fundamental racism baked into American society remains intact.
Another suggestion for police reform includes increased use of body cameras. But a recent study out of Washington D.C, in which more than 2,000 police officers were found to have used excessive force despite wearing body cameras, indicates that body cameras may not actually reduce police violence. Even when body cameras do capture police misconduct, the footage can be deleted or withheld for some time. Many of the proposals that emphasize a police reform approach neglect to consider why the proposals don’t actually do much to reduce police violence.
It seems like a better approach would be a reallocation model, one in which police money is diverted to instead fund crisis intervention and social service work. This approach seems to more adequately address survivors’ needs. Several successful reallocation models exist around the country, and several cities have adopted this method, including Eugene; Oregon; Austin, Texas; Oakland, California; and Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Other cities, such as Minneapolis and Los Angeles, have made police budgetary cuts to reinvest in communities.
Police officers have long been asked to complete work outside of their training, responding as social workers, community specialists, and mental health professionals. Reallocating those funds means allowing actual social workers, community specialists, and mental health professionals to do the work they have been trained to do, and returns police officers to the work they have been trained to do. This would be the process of defunding the police, a conversation electrified in recent months, first with the murder of George Flloyd in 2020 and then with massive protests taking place all over the country and world last summer.
Admittedly, the police problem I chose to highlight does not exactly have the same tone as the one that’s made national news. But regardless, it is still a conversation we must have. And the conversation should begin with questioning what police are really accomplishing for survivors of domestic violence, and how we can expand support services beyond the police. Public safety comes only from a web of community supporters.
