Police release with conditions of the accused in cases of domestic violence in Montreal, Canada
| Author | Sonia Gauthier |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895808099180 |
| Published date | 01 February 2009 |
| Date | 01 February 2009 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
© The Author(s), 2009. Reprints and Permissions:
http://www.sagepub.co.uk/JournalsPermissions.nav
www.sagepublications.com
ISSN 1748–8958; Vol: 9(1): 51–71
DOI: 10.1177/1748895808099180
Police release with conditions of the
accused in cases of domestic violence in
Montreal, Canada
S O N I A G A U T H I E R
University of Montreal, Canada
Abstract
This article presents the results of a study conducted in Montreal
(Canada) on how police use their power to release an accused on
bail with conditions in incidents of domestic violence, which was
granted to them in 1995. Interviews conducted in 2000 with police
investigators and lieutenant-detectives revealed that police view this
measure favourably. It allows them to release the accused on bail
before his first appearance by monitoring him with conditions.
According to police, this both reassures and protects the victim and
avoids the need to detain the accused just to have conditions
imposed by the court. While investigators found the decision to
detain or release to be difficult at times, they also felt they were as
capable as judicial officials in making the decision to release on bail.
The police respondents explained why and how they are prudent in
their assessment of the risks associated with release. Future research
should evaluate to what degree the conditions they impose are
adequate.
Key Words
bail policy • bail practice • domestic violence • police bail • release
with conditions
5 1
52
Criminology & Criminal Justice 9(1)
Introduction
Prior to the mid-1980s, it was rare to see Canadian men prosecuted for vio-
lence against their female partners. This situation changed with the imple-
mentation of pro-prosecution policies and reductions in the discretionary
powers of the police. There was also a growing movement elsewhere to
criminalize domestic violence, particularly in the USA and parts of Europe,
such as the UK.
In 1982, the Canadian House of Commons passed a motion urging
police to lay charges in cases of intimate partner assault and to treat it the
same as any other type of assault. From that point on, police started laying
charges, regardless of the wishes of the victim. Many US and European pro-
arrest and pro-charge policies contained similar directives (Hoyle and
Sanders, 2000; Buzawa and Buzawa, 2003).
In 1986, the Quebec Ministry of Justice and the Solicitor General pub-
lished its Domestic Violence Intervention Policy [Politique d’intervention
en matière de violence conjugale] (Government of Quebec, 1986a). This
policy strongly criticized the actions of various actors in the criminal justice
system. It also provided detailed recommendations for the progression of
domestic violence cases, according to whether or not a criminal offence had
been committed. Almost a decade later, a revised version of this policy
stated that: ‘The enactment of this [1986] policy led to a large increase in
the number of cases reported to the police. Changes made to police and
judicial intervention practices resulted in a virtually systematic prosecution
of cases reported to police’ (Government of Quebec, 1995:57).1
When these policies were introduced, an investigator could release an
accused until his first court appearance, but did not have the power to moni-
tor him by imposing conditions. If investigators wanted restrictions
imposed for the duration of the legal process, they had to detain the accused
until a judge could impose such conditions. In most cases the accused was
remanded until his appearance. A 1992–3 study on pre-trial detention con-
ducted in Montreal, Canada, revealed that police were not opposed to the
release of almost half (44.4%) the men remanded in domestic violence cases
until their first appearance, as long as the court imposed conditions
(Gauthier, 2001). In 1994, the Canadian Criminal Code (CCC) conferred a
new general power on police, permitting them to impose certain conditions
on released suspects. This power would thus also apply to domestic vio-
lence cases (married couples, common-law unions, dating situations, and
ex-unions), even though these were not specifically mentioned in this sec-
tion of the CCC. We decided to investigate whether police were actually
using this new power to impose conditions on released offenders in cases of
domestic violence.
To our knowledge, this is the first Canadian study exploring the deci-
sions of police to release an accused with conditions. Some research on the
topic was conducted in the UK, where police were granted this power by
the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (Raine and Willson,
Gauthier––Police release in cases of domestic violence
53
1995b, 1996, 1997; Bucke and Brown, 1997; Morgan and Henderson,
1998; Hucklesby and Marshall, 2000). This measure has been mentioned
in other texts, but these contain very little information specific to domestic
violence. This scarcity of studies on police release with conditions is dis-
quieting, since police decisions influence often the later decisions of judicial
officials, particularly on issues concerning the status of the accused during
legal proceedings (Grosman, 1969; Trotter, 1999; Hucklesby and Marshall,
2000).
This article presents the findings of our study. After explaining our
methodology, we will review certain Canadian Criminal Code sections on
the release and detention of suspects awaiting their first appearance, men-
tioning some similarities with the UK. We will then present our results on
the perceptions and practices of police regarding the release or detention of
suspects in domestic violence cases. Comparisons will be made throughout
with the UK studies. The article will end with a discussion of these results.
Methodology
In view of the scarcity of literature concerning release with conditions, we
decided to take an exploratory approach and use qualitative methods to
collect our data. The objectives of this study were: (1) to describe and
analyse the factors associated with police decisions for remand or various
release modalities in domestic violence cases; (2) to understand police inves-
tigators’ reasons to use or not to use release with conditions; and (3) to
understand how police view their discretionary power regarding release
with conditions in domestic violence cases.
In this study, we interviewed investigators from the Montreal Police
Service (SPVM). Montreal is the largest city in Quebec, occupying a geo-
graphic area of approximately 500 km2 (Government of Quebec, 2008) and
with a population of 1,812,723 at the time of our study (City of Montreal,
2002). The 2002 crime rate against persons in the Montreal region was
1464 per 100,000 inhabitants (Government of Quebec, 2003). Domestic
violence represents a major proportion of these crimes, because for the
same year, the reported rate for domestic violence incidents was 406 per
100,000 inhabitants (Government of Quebec, 2004).
The study was conducted in the four Operational Centres (OC) of the
Montreal Police Service (SPVM), where everyone arrested for domestic vio-
lence is brought for investigation. The study was conducted primarily with
police investigators (sergeant-detectives), because they decide the status of
the accused while awaiting his appearance for the domestic violence incident.
It was decided to have lieutenant-detectives, the supervisors of the inves-
tigators, select the investigators who would participate in the study. The
lieutenant-detectives, one in each OC, were given the following selection
criteria: (1) the investigators must work with domestic violence cases; (2) at
least one investigator must have held his or her job since before 1994, when
54
Criminology & Criminal Justice 9(1)
they received the power to release on bail with conditions; (3) at least one
should be a woman. The interviews were conducted in 20002 with 14 ser-
geant-detectives (out of a total of 507 in the SPVM as of 31 December
2000). At the time of data collection, certain SPVM investigators special-
ized in domestic violence cases (i.e. they worked almost exclusively on such
cases).3 We interviewed two of these specialist investigators. In total, we
conducted individual interviews with 10 men and four women, whose
SPVM police experience ranged from nine to 30 years (M ⫽ 19.1 years) and
who had worked as investigators between one and 14 years (M ⫽ 5.4
years). We also interviewed four lieutenant-detectives, one from each OC
(out of a total of 52 in the SPVM as of 31 December 2000).
We recognize that our sampling method probably led us to interview
those investigators their superiors thought were the best ones. This also
means that we are unable to generalize our data to all SPVM investigators.
We are even less able to generalize our data to other Canadian police
services because police practices can vary greatly from one service to
another (Bucke and Brown, 1997; Raine and Willson, 1997; Hucklesby,
2001). Furthermore, as the interviews only dealt with domestic violence
cases, we did not receive any information on the perceptions and practices
of police on release with conditions in other types of situations and were
thus unable to make comparisons with other contexts. Finally, since this
was an exploratory study, we do not claim that our findings are able to
identify best practices for police release with conditions. Nevertheless, the
data we collected were very rich and allowed us to get a good understand-
ing of how these investigators decided on the status of the accused, how
they used release on bail with conditions, and what they thought about this
...
To continue reading
Request your trial