Professor Iain Brennan I.Brennan@hull.ac.uk
Professor of Criminology
Professor Iain Brennan I.Brennan@hull.ac.uk
Professor of Criminology
Miss Leticia Couto Leticia.S.Couto@hull.ac.uk
Lecturer
Dr Nicola O'Leary N.Oleary@hull.ac.uk
Reader in Criminology
Perhaps more than any other occupation, police witness the context and aftermath of domestic abuse but little is known about the police-victim overlap with regard to domestic abuse. This paper, based on survey responses from approximately one-quarter of the workforce in an English police force (weighted n = 876) addresses this gap. In the survey, respondents described personal characteristics, colleague and personal experience of domestic abuse victimisation. Weighting the data to address non-response patterns, we found lifetime prevalence of domestic abuse in the police workforce around 22%. Females were more likely than males to experience domestic abuse (relative risk (RR) 1.61, confidence interval (CI) 1.25–2.08). Of victims, 47% disclosed their victimisation to a colleague, while 37% disclosed to a line manager and 27% were abused by a partner who also worked in policing. Although there was no difference in disclosure between males and females, disclosure to a colleague (RR 1.66, CI 1.24–2.13) or a line manager (RR 1.79, CI 1.24–2.58) was more likely if the abuser worked in policing. This paper–the most comprehensive description of domestic abuse victimisation in a policing population–demonstrates that, despite their occupational role as guardians and enforcers of the law, the police workforce experience domestic abuse in similar ways as do the general population. As with the general population, this frequency of victimisation, coupled with the repetitive and continuous nature of domestic abuse and the harm it causes, represents a widespread problem and threat to the wellbeing of the police workforce.
Brennan, I., Couto, L., & O’Leary, N. (2023). Prevalence and patterns of domestic abuse victimisation in an English police workforce. Policing and Society, https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2184817
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Feb 21, 2023 |
Online Publication Date | Mar 13, 2023 |
Publication Date | 2023 |
Deposit Date | Mar 24, 2023 |
Publicly Available Date | Mar 27, 2023 |
Journal | Policing and Society |
Print ISSN | 1043-9463 |
Electronic ISSN | 1477-2728 |
Publisher | Routledge |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1080/10439463.2023.2184817 |
Keywords | Domestic abuse; Policing; Victimisation; Police-perpetrated crime |
Public URL | https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4249283 |
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Copyright Statement
© 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent
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