Policing Domestic Violence: Dilemmas and Contradictions1*
| Date | 01 December 1995 |
| DOI | 10.1177/00048658950280S104 |
| Published date | 01 December 1995 |
| Author | Elizabeth A Stanko |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Policing Domestic Violence:
Dilemmas and Contradict ions*
Elizabeth
A
Stankof
As millions watched
0
J
Simpson driving down a LA freeway, we saw a
vision of police in pursuit of a national hero
-
and a wife beater allegedly
turned murderer. Now charged with two counts of felony murder, Simpson
and his court appearances have become the subjects of multi-media
spectacles. The context of the murder, an alleged culmination of years of
harassment, stalking, threat and violence, seems to be relegated to the
background of the so-called tragedy of a fallen hero. Police, orchestrating the
imagery of their competence as law enforcers, are shown actively
investigating the crimes. At the heart of the Simpson case
-
lest we forget
-
is the very real, and very common context of men’s lethal violence to women
within domestic settings. Somewhat hidden are questions concerning the
nature of policing and the presumed ability of police to protect women from
sub-lethal and lethal abuse.
No
matter what evidence to the contrary
-
the
deaths of countless women attest to this
-
we still wish to believe that the
state can and will protect us from the potential for deadly abuse by our
partners.
Central to the debate about the policing of domestic violence is an ideology
that citizen safety is assured through the provision of public police services.
In a recent insightful essay, Peter Manning argued that we refuse to reassess
our
belief in policing as citizen protection because ‘the preventive conceit
retains its grip on criminal justice practitioners and researchers’ (1993:639). In
the face of the evidence of rather ineffectual law enforcement strategies to
deter drunk driving, illegal drug use, juvenile crime and domestic violence,
states Manning, we continue to search for law enforcement solutions to crime.
As Manning further suggests, those who advocate arrest as
the
only
police
response in domestic disputes neglect some wider issues, such as the context
of the arrest itself, the limits of formal social control, and the preferred role of
policing in a democratic society.
Such a belief in the preventive conceit pervades the debates about policing
domestic violence. The question is asked: Does arrest act as a deterrent to
men’s violence against women, and in particular,
as
a mechanism for
preventing men’s violence against women in the home?
This
paper examines
the hotly-debated topic of policing domestic violence in order to explore why
we still seek solutions to social problems through policing. I argue that using
the state’s system of protection
-
policing
-
to focus our attention on citizen
safety detracts our attention from the shortfalls, especially those emanating
from two particular places:
(1)
from within the organisation of
the
police
service itself; and
(2)
those located in the disjunction between police actions
-
~~ ~
*
This is
a
revision
of
the
1994
John
Barry
Memorial Lecture, University
of
Melbourne.
I
wish
to
thank Ken Polk, Christine Alder, Peter Manning, Tony Green and
Dee
Dee
Glass
for
comments on this
paper.
t
Reader in Criminology, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 3PH,
UK.
31
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