Police Response to Domestic Violence - Oxford Academic Journals

BRIT. J. CRIMINOL.

(2000) 40, 14–36

POLICE RESPONSE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE From Victim Choice to Victim Empowerment? CA R O L Y N HOYLE and AN D REW SAN D ERS * This article explores the neglected question of why victims of domestic violence call the police, and how useful the police response is to them. We found that many women do not seek criminal sanctions because sanctions are unlikely to help to end the violence. This calls into question the value, to victims, of mandatory arrest policies which require prosecution decisions to be based on evidential concerns alone. These policies are based (naively, we argue) on assumptions about the interests of victims. Policies which give effect to victim preferences are also naive in ignoring the circumstances which shape victim preferences. We therefore argue for an approach which would empower victims to make choices which are less coerced (by their circumstances) than is usual at present. Elements of this approach can be found in the practices of some domestic violence units. What is the point of making it a crime for men to assault their female partners and ex-partners?1 The question may seem provocative and the answer obvious. However, it is not self-evident that domestic assault should be treated the same as, for instance, non-domestic assault. For while the two types of assault are legally identical, they are sociologically distinct. The fact of the domestic relationship, and its different nature to that of, for instance, neighbour relationships means that not only is the aetiology of domestic assault different to that of other violent crime, but the response of victims will often be different too. So, why criminalize domestic assault? First, criminalization serves a symbolic purpose, indicating the moral unacceptability of domestic violence (Edwards 1989; Stark 1993). It also has the instrumental purpose of deterring some offending (general deterrence). Another purpose is to enable the state to intervene, usually by prosecuting, in order to exact retribution, produce specific deterrence and, perhaps, ‘treat’ the offender, thereby reducing further offending in a more constructive way (see Dobash and Dobash et al. 1996). These are, of course, the standard justifications for the punishment of all offences.2 Let us accept the value of simply criminalizing domestic assault. Let us further accept the legitimacy of retribution as a goal in itself, although not one which should

* The authors are respectively research officer at the University of Oxford Centre for Criminological Research and Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Bristol. They gratefully acknowledge the support of the Nuffield Foundation which funded the project upon which this paper is based and the Thames Valley Police for their full cooperation. The police service was helpful at every level but they would particularly like to thank the Domestic Violence Officers in the three areas within which they spent most of their time. And they would like to thank Richard Young and the journal’s anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on earlier drafts. 1 This paper is concerned only with violence against women by men, although we acknowledge that there are other forms of domestic violence. 2 Incapacitation is not dealt with here as relatively few domestic violence offences result in custodial sentences. This is either because of the problems associated with prosecuting such offences, as discussed below, or because the majority of perpetrators are charged with the relatively less serious offences of assault occasioning actual bodily harm or criminal damage (Hoyle 1998).

14 © ISTD: The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies 2000

POLICE RESPONSE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

over-ride all other considerations such as negative side-effects of criminalization. The other purposes are all geared to crime reduction, usually with prosecution as a first step.3 As with all crime, it would be naive to assume that measures to reduce domestic violence work particularly well. This does not matter to the individual victim as far as most crimes are concerned, as his or her lot could be improved by prosecution and will rarely be worsened. There are, of course, exceptions to this; but, apart from offences where the court process itself can lead to ‘secondary victimization’ (Adler 1987), these tend also to be crimes where the victim and offender are known to each other and where intimidation of witnesses is therefore more likely (see for example, Cretney and Davis 1995, and, generally, Morgan and Newburn 1997, ch. 4). Society as a whole—including future victims—may not be so well served by prosecution, but that is not our concern here. Domestic violence, however, is different from most other crimes. Set against the moderate instrumental benefits of prosecution are the disbenefits which often occur, including more violence as punishment from the offender and the economic costs to the whole family of monetary penalties. And so, if the main purposes of making domestic violence criminal are to set a moral standard and to reduce future violence, it may be that prosecution is, in many cases, not merely unnecessary but actually counterproductive. Cretney and Davis point out that, although the police and Crown Prosecution Service, as well as some women’s groups, accept that prosecution has limited instrumental value, prosecution is nonetheless pursued as if its success is a goal in itself. They observe, for instance, that ‘police “support” for the victim is geared to sustaining her commitment to the prosecution effort; it is not about protecting her from further violence’ (1997: 151). Of course, it will not always be clear, in any particular case, whether prosecution will make matters better or worse for the victim or, indeed, what can be done to protect the victim. In this article we explore the views of victims about the value of criminal justice interventions in their own cases, examine the rationale behind these views, and assess changes in police policy and practice over the past few years in the light of this victim perspective. The two changes which we will consider here are, first, the introduction of ‘pro-arrest’ policies and, second, the establishment of domestic violence units and domestic violence officers (hereafter referred to as DVUs and DVOs respectively), the latter following the recommendations of the 1990 Home Office Circular on domestic violence (No. 60) (see Grace 1995). As we shall see, these policies were introduced in an attempt to make the police response to domestic violence more effective, where the assumption was that ‘effectiveness’ was to be measured in terms mainly of criminal justice sanctions. In discussing these questions we draw upon fieldwork carried out in the Thames Valley Police area during 1996–97 which was designed to explore some of the issues raised by an earlier study, the fieldwork for which was carried out in 1993. That project was concerned primarily with the policing of domestic violence from the viewpoint of the police (Hoyle

3 Although Scottish experiments with adult diversion schemes and ‘caution-plus’ or reparation schemes for juvenile offending in England and Wales provide models for possible developments in the field of domestic violence (see Sanders 1988; Edwards 1993). See the discussion of perpetrators’ programmes in the Conclusion below. Note, though, that from a feminist perspective mediation strategies are seen as legitimating male violence against women (see, for example, Stanko 1989; Hilton 1991).

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CAROLYN HOYLE AND ANDREW SANDERS

1998). The research on which this paper draws shifts the focus onto female victims.4 During 1996 we interviewed 65 women in three Thames Valley Police areas (X, Y and Z). Thirty-two victims were drawn from a sample of all of the cases reported during a six-week period in 1996. Another 21 victims were comprised of women who had reported four or more domestic disputes during the previous 12 months but who had not reported a further dispute within the four months prior to the commencement of the fieldwork. The remaining 12 victims, who had been issued with emergency panic alarms, were interviewed primarily to assess the impact of these alarms on their feelings of safety but were also asked questions about their experience of, and the police response to, previous victimization.5 In this article we discuss what victims want when they call the police to a domestic dispute. Through an examination of the actual and potential impact of recent changes in policing we develop a model of policing which, we argue, can better meet the desires and interests of victims than either the traditional police model or the pro-arrest one. Although our focus is on the needs of the victims who call the police, we briefly consider the wider policy implications of our argument for domestic violence victims in general in the concluding section.

Varieties of Police Policy The ‘victim choice’ position Prior to the 60/1990 Home Office Circular on domestic violence, it was argued that police services did not take seriously their response to crimes between intimates (Edwards 1989). The 1990 Circular sought to change this by urging the police to treat domestic violence as seriously as other violent crimes, and, more importantly, to consider pursuing a case even if the victim withdraws her support (it did not go as far as to advocate a pro-arrest or pro-charge position). Whilst the Thames Valley Police adopted most of the Home Office recommendations in its local area policies, these policies did not translate directly into practice (Grace 1995, also found this to be true for the police services she examined). Hence, in 1993 an officer summed up the feelings of most of his colleagues when he commented that ‘It is the informal policy to leave the ball in their (the victim’s) court.’ (Hoyle 1998). In other words, the police approach was reported as firmly based on the victim’s choice. Hoyle (1998) found, as have many researchers before her, that the majority of victims of domestic violence either refused to make a statement or withdrew statements soon after making them, often before the offender was even charged (see also Cretney and Davis 1995; Buzawa and Buzawa 1996). These cases, in which women did not want to

4 Police officers were also interviewed about their response in the majority of these cases and all recorded data on victims and offenders were examined. In addition, the DVOs for each of the 12 Thames Valley areas were interviewed about their respective roles and responsibilities as well as their frustrations. 5 Completed domestic violence proformas provided our main sampling frame. Our aim for a random sample was compromised to some extent by operational police officers. Although officers were meant to complete a proforma for each incident they attended, they sometimes failed to do so. However, they did whenever there had been an arrest. Furthermore, the women whose partners had been arrested and who were trying to end the relationship were most willing to talk and most easily contacted. Hence our interview sample comprises a higher proportion of serious cases, and cases resulting in prosecution, than the population from which it was drawn.

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testify, hardly ever resulted in a prosecution. Police and prosecutors shared both a genuine desire to respond to the apparent wishes of victims and a concern about the negative messages that compelling witnesses could send out to the wider victim population if it was done frequently. Victims of domestic violence are rarely compelled to testify against their violent partners despite PACE making spouses compellable witnesses (s.80(3)(a)) (see Hoyle 1998; Cretney and Davis 1997). Police officers and prosecutors generally saw the criminal justice system as an extremely clumsy tool for dealing with domestic violence. It seemed that in cases of domestic violence there was a ‘working rule’, shared by police officers and prosecutors, that victim withdrawal or victim non-cooperation marked the end of the case.6 Of course, cases which resulted in no further action, those where charges were reduced and those which were discontinued were sometimes products of the law, casualties of stringent evidential criteria, but they were more often products of a working rule which equated ‘hostile’ victims with unwinnable cases. So, the 1993 position was that criminal justice agents acted according to women’s expressed wishes. This ‘victim choice’ approach has been criticized on several different grounds. It allows individual victims to decide what may be best for them without considering the impact of non-prosecution on perpetrators and victims of domestic violence in general. (see, for example, Friedman and Shulman 1990). The idea that the police should act on women’s choices also presupposes that women could achieve the ‘right’ decision without accurate information, support and advice. It assumes that the world which domestic violence victims inhabit is conducive to ‘free choice’, and that they are free agents (see, for example, Stark 1993). The ‘victim choice’ approach also exposes women to the manipulation of others—such as perpetrators, police officers and family members—who may have an interest in the criminal process not being invoked. And so the police, in particular, have been seen by some to use a ‘victim choice’ approach as a cloak to cover up their own disinclination to treat domestic violence in the way they treat other crime (Edwards 1989). The pro-arrest position Since 1993, the Thames Valley Police, along with many other police services, has introduced DVOs and pro-arrest policies. One of the main aims of these policies is to reduce the number of domestic violence cases discontinued by the police or the Crown Prosecution Service. In other words, they are intended to address the problem of victim non-cooperation in the belief that it is in the interests of both individual and general victims of domestic violence to increase arrest and prosecution rates. As it happens, there was no rise in arrests between 1993 and 1996 in those areas of the Thames Valley which we studied in both years.7

6 Working rules are informal rules developed by operational police officers in response to everyday encounters which structure the way the police exercise their discretion. This term was first adopted by Smith and Gray (1983), although Ericson (1981) had previously referred to ‘recipe rules’. McConville et al. 1991 developed the concept further. 7 This finding requires some explanation and should be treated with caution. This will not be dealt with in this paper but is discussed elsewhere (Hoyle and Sanders 1998).

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Pro-arrest policies in the United Kingdom are based on mandatory or presumptive arrest initiatives which were introduced in America after research suggested that arrest deterred domestic violence offenders from further offending (Sherman and Berk 1984). Replication studies have since failed to provide unambiguous support for this initial finding. Arrest was found to be associated with reduced domestic violence in some cities, amongst certain (employed) people and in the short run, but associated with increased violence in other cities, amongst certain (unemployed) people in the long run (Sherman et al. 1991; see, generally, Morley and Mullender 1992). Despite this, there seems to be a consensus that arrest is almost always in the best interests of the victim. Hence, the pro-arrest policy is to act according to women’s apparent interests regardless of the views they express. The assumption is that increasing arrest and prosecution rates will lower, or at least not adversely influence, rates of violence. The danger that pro-arrest policies could actually increase the violence is not generally taken seriously.8 The policies vary slightly across the different Thames Valley Police areas, but this statement from area Y sums up the general pro-arrest position: In all cases where there is evidence of injury to the victim, Officers WILL intervene in a positive manner by arresting the offender for the appropriate offence. This is regardless of reluctance by the victim to make a formal complaint. (original emphasis)

It goes on to argue that: Where an offender is arrested, and whilst in Custody the victim refuses to support proceedings, he should be released on Section 47(3) Bail pending further contact with the victim by the Officer dealing. Efforts should then be made to persuade the victim to support a prosecution. If this is declined, then any independent evidence of the assault should be assessed and if considered sufficient, i.e. any independent witnesses etc., then the offender should be charged and a file submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service. After proceedings have been instigated and the aggrieved decides to withdraw their complaint, the evidence should be reviewed by the appropriate line Manager—who will consult with the Domestic Violence Coordinator and Crown Prosecution Service, with a view to continuing the prosecution.

This is not simply a pro-arrest policy, but also a pro-charge policy. The latter, as we shall see, is not a necessary condition of the former. Like the Home Office Circular, the Thames Valley Police policies reflect the assumption that arrest and prosecution is the desirable outcome for victims and therefore the goal of police intervention. For example, the domestic violence policy for Thames Valley area X states that where a power of arrest exists it should be exercised because ‘. . . research has shown that the arrest of an alleged offender acts as a powerful deterrent against their re-offending’. Whilst the police aim—to reduce further violence—is appropriate, the method advocated to achieve that aim is not necessarily so. It is, we will argue, based on a naive belief in the individual deterrent effect of arrest in cases of domestic violence and a misunderstanding of the situational context of that violence. Pro-arrest policies embody several questionable assumptions:

8 There are, of course, exceptions—see, for instance, in the USA, Davis (1988). Significantly, neither Home Office policy nor the policy of the Thames Valley Police addresses this danger.

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1. 2. 3. 4.

Taking the choice away from victims protects them from retaliatory and intimidatory violence. Arrest and prosecution communicates to victims and offenders the symbolic message that domestic violence is socially unacceptable. The criminal justice system is responsible for, and capable of, deterring crime. Manning refers to this assumption as the ‘preventive conceit’ (1996). The preferences to which ‘non-cooperation’ give effect are invalid, illegitimate or contrary to the interests of the women who express them.

In this paper we are concerned only with this final assumption. However, we can note in passing that if arrest, charge and prosecution does little to further aims 1 and 3 (as Stanko (1995) suggests) it may be that the facilitation of the non-criminal justice preferences of women is entirely rational. Hence, we need to know more about these non-criminal justice preferences. The pro-arrest approach assumes a position opposite to that of the victim choice approach: that victims have little agency and that the police and policy makers know what is best for them. It seems presumptuous that policy makers or the feminist advocates who have influenced them can easily determine what is best for, or in the interests of, a diverse group of battered women. It is as much a conceit as the theory of deterrence in this area, which assumes that violent men are a homogeneous group. The ‘victim empowerment’ position Hart has commented that, ‘An understanding of victim reluctance is critical for informed decision-making about the role of the battered victim in prosecution, strategies to enhance victim cooperation, and ultimately, disposition by the prosecution or the courts’ (1996). We will argue that Hart is right to argue for the importance of understanding the factors influencing victim preferences. However, we shall also argue that this knowledge should be used not simply to enhance the chances of successful prosecution. Rather, it should be used to put in place those conditions which enable women to best understand what is in their interests, and encourage them to act accordingly, and then to support them in the choices which they have made—whether these choices include invoking criminal justice intervention or not. As Stanko argues, ‘Different women want different kinds of support’ (1995: 40). We will show that the criminal justice system has moved partially in this direction, but not far enough. We then go on to identify the main elements of a victim empowerment model. But first we examine the context which shapes victim preferences.

The Context within which Victims Make Choices In recent years we have come to understand more about the ways and circumstances in which some men control their partners (Randall 1997). Each way, ranging from the brutally violent to the subtly psychological, suggests some type of ‘one-up, one-down relationship’ (Norton 1988). These ‘controlling behaviours’, which are a form of emotional violence, often precede physical violence and almost invariably continue even 19


when the perpetrator has started to engage in physical abuse (Wilson et al. 1995). Archer argues that men whose control is, or is perceived to be, under threat by their partner often commit violence in order to re-establish their control (1994, see also Stark 1996; Stanko 1997). Challenges to men’s attempts to control their partners have even been cited as precursors to wife killings and killings of violent husbands (see Wilson and Daly 1992; Walker 1984; Browne 1987). Controlling behaviours have been found to be present in the majority of relationships where men are violent to women. These behaviours include: criticisms of the woman as well as her family and friends; limiting contact with her family and friends; jealousy of her contact with other men; scrutiny of, and restriction of, her actions; threats to hurt her children and/or her pets; name-calling; and financial control (see, for example; Dobash et al. 1996; Johnson and Sacco 1995). In our study, women were not asked directly about controlling behaviours and yet half of them discussed their relationships with the perpetrators by referring to them and to the isolation to which they so often lead. Men’s controlling behaviours not only impact on their partners, who might be described as ‘primary victims’, but, in addition, create ‘secondary victims’. In other words, they can affect the wider family unit (see also NCH Action for Children 1995; Jouriles et al. 1989; Kashani et al. 1992; Katz and Gottman 1993). Many children living within violent households learn to ‘read’ the moods of their parents and adapt their own behaviour so as not to provoke an agitated father further. In one Thames Valley case a child took to cowering under the kitchen table. Another didn’t have friends home in case his father ‘was in one of his moods’. Most of the women described the early stages of their relationships as healthy and supportive but located the advent of violence and control as the first step towards interdependency, for example, when the couple moved away from the woman’s family or when they got married or began sharing a home (see also Alvi and Selbee 1997). In other words, when the man felt secure that the woman was—to some extent—dependent on him. As Sally9 put it: ‘When I first met Paul I thought he’d protect me from my husband [who was extremely violent] and he was my chance to get away. In London he was so kind but once we got here to his house he started to control and abuse me’. Michelle, who had been beaten so badly on her honeymoon that she nearly died, talked about the dramatic change in her partner: ‘He was very nice until we got married and literally on our wedding day he changed . . . When I was packing [for their honeymoon] he told me I couldn’t take half my clothes because he said only sluts wore clothes like that. He said I wasn’t to take a bathing costume as I wasn’t to show my body to other men.’ This example illustrates a common theme: the commission of violent acts in the name of jealousy, suspiciousness or possessiveness (see also Dobash and Dobash 1992; Hart 1988; Walker 1979). Some of these women had internalized their partners’ accusations of inadequacy to the extent that they did not feel confident in leaving the relationship. As Diane explained: ‘For years he’d tried to convince me that everything was my fault—that I was to blame. In the end I believed him’. Women’s partners controlled their money and kept them ‘trapped’ in their homes. Most importantly, they alienated them from their

9

All names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees.

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friends and families through rudeness and aggression. Angela explained why she no longer saw her parents or siblings: ‘They stopped calling me because he was so horrid to them and wouldn’t let me see them. My family had become very irritated with me keeping going back to him and they eventually lost sympathy with me so I couldn’t rely on them.’ Women who are isolated tend not to have the support network or the confidence they need to end their violent relationship or to support a prosecution. They are torn between their desire to escape the violence and their fear of being isolated in the wider world. Many of the interviewees spoke of feeling trapped within their violent relationships. One woman explained that she had for many years hoped that someone would notice her injuries and ‘do something about it’. No one did and she lived in silent fear until the police were called by a concerned neighbour. Caroline said: ‘He played the “you’re all that I’ve got” routine . . . He controlled me and behaved so badly that we lost our mutual friends. He used to say “It’s not over until I say it’s over”.’ Jenny, who had been controlled by her husband for 35 years, explained: ‘He has made me feel useless and inadequate— like I could not escape because I couldn’t look after myself if I did. I have made myself look as ugly and sad as I could because he’s kinder to me if I look pathetic. Whenever I make attempts to improve myself he gets aggressive because he thinks I’m not in his control’. Many partners of violent men never call the police (see, for example, Stanko 1995; Morley and Mullender 1994). They are either afraid of what will happen to them if they do, or believe that if they do they will have to choose between staying with their partners anyway or making their own way in a world which they perceive to be no longer their own. As Caroline said: ‘He was violent for two and a half years . . . I kept blaming myself for provoking him.’ In all that time she never reported this to the police: ‘I thought that the police presence would further aggravate him.’ Another woman, Lisa, said, ‘He controlled me. I felt that if I didn’t agree to everything he wanted he would hurt me. He gave me no freedom . . .’ But we will show that, even amongst women who call the police, fear of separation dissuades many from seeking arrest, and dissuades many more from seeking prosecution. All these women want the violence to stop, but not at all costs. The more powerful the controlling behaviours of their partners (built up, in many cases, over many years) the less likely it is, all other things being equal, that the women will seek to involve the criminal justice system. When we look, as we do in the next section, at women’s decisions to call the police and to seek arrest and prosecution (or not) we therefore have to understand that their choices are formed within relationships where controlling behaviours are prevalent. We shall see how these behaviours shape victim preferences. It should be apparent, therefore, that the pattern of victim preferences is neither inevitable nor natural—it is socially constructed by the structural and interpersonal features of these women’s lives. This is not to say that we accept that victims suffer from ‘learned helplessness’ or ‘battered women’s syndrome’ (see Dobash and Dobash 1992, for a critique of these theories). We are not arguing that these women have no control over their preferences. To the contrary, we argue that their decisions are rationally chosen in the context of their current lives. These women are, therefore, situationally coerced by their circumstances. The task, as we shall outline later, is to help women to change their circumstances, in order to alleviate this coercion and make different choices—which may be more helpful in the long term—equally rational for these women. 21


Involving the Criminal Justice System The decision to call the police10 Over half (31) of the women in our study11 said that they had wanted the offender to be arrested, leaving a large minority (22) not wanting the police to do what is traditionally considered to be their role, that is, to invoke the criminal law. Of those who did want the perpetrator to be arrested, the majority did not want him to be prosecuted. They wanted an arrest without any further criminal justice intervention to ‘teach him a lesson’ or to resolve the immediate situation temporarily. Thirty of the women we interviewed wanted the perpetrator to be removed from the scene. This group overlapped with those who wanted him to be arrested, and many victims who did not tell us that they wanted the police to remove the offender were not in the presence of the offender by the time the police arrived. The majority of these women wanted ‘some peace and quiet’—a temporary respite from the aggression—with some seeing the police removal of the perpetrator as a necessary precursor to their taking action to end the relationship. For many of these women, ending the relationship was their main goal. In summary, most women who call the police wish to be separated, albeit sometimes temporarily, from the offender. Arrest is sought by many of these women only if it is necessary to achieve their goal of temporary or permanent separation. A sizeable minority (seven) wanted the police to calm the perpetrator but had no particular wish for him to be removed. As Deborah explained: ‘I wanted the police to calm him down. I hadn’t even thought about whether I wanted him arrested or not—I just wanted it all to be over’. And a few (four) wanted the police to warn him or ‘tell him off’ without arresting him: ‘The police went round to see him and warned him about his behaviour. I was happy with that—I didn’t want it to go any further.’ Less usual reasons for calling the police included: wanting advice, wanting the police to make a record of the event for future reference; wanting the police to try to get help for their partners; and wanting the police to protect them and their children from further immediate violence by taking them somewhere safe. A minority of those who wanted their partner to be arrested offered retributive rationales: ‘I wanted him to go down for this, to pay a price for what he’d done to me.’ Others believed in the deterrent effect of arrest: ‘I wanted him arrested because I wanted to shock him into straightening up.’ Retribution and deterrence also played a part in the thinking of the women who wanted their partners to be warned instead of arrested. A few of the women thought that an arrest would facilitate support for their partners’ addictive or mental health problems. For example, Melanie, whose partner suffered from schizophrenia, explained: ‘They did what I wanted—arrested him and took him to the cells, got a doctor in and he sectioned him [Mental Health Act]. They said it was an ABH [assault occasioning Actual Bodily Harm] and did I want him prosecuted if he was fit to stand trial. I said no, I just wanted him out of my life but to be safe and to get the help he needed. He’s a kind man and is only violent because he’s ill.’

10 Not all of the victims in our sample had called the police themselves—in four incidents a neighbour or a friend had made this contact—but this seemed to make little difference to what they wanted or expected from the police. 11 The data drawn on in this section exclude those women who were interviewed about emergency alarms.

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It is clear that many women do not want their violent partners or ex-partners to be arrested. For many, this is because of controlling behaviours such as the installation of fear of retaliation. As Monica put it, ‘He has a history of domestic violence and I didn’t want to annoy him. I knew he’d always come looking for me. I didn’t think I could get away from him . . . It’s not worth it because he’d kill me if I got him into trouble and I’ve got nowhere to hide.’ Another said, in answer to why she did not seek arrest, ‘Because he would have been even more violent afterwards.’ Many women made the distinction between removal of the man and his arrest: ‘I was afraid of the repercussions—of retaliatory violence. I thought he’d kill me if I got him arrested. I just wanted him out of my house—out of my life.’ Another did want her partner to be arrested at first, ‘. . . but later I realized that I was too frightened of the repercussions. When I’d calmed down and the police had got him out of the house I started to think that he’d retaliate if I went any further. If he’d been arrested for criminal damage he would have got worse . . . I’ve got what I wanted now—if I’d pursued it it would have given him the excuse to come round looking for trouble.’ However, views such as these are not formed in the abstract, but are formed within the context of violent relationships. Many victims do not seek arrests because, in part, of the controlling behaviours of their violent partners or ex-partners. Deciding whether or not to prosecute Most of the incidents in our sample of cases were judged by the officers attending to have been criminal matters and they asked the majority of the victims to make a statement. We asked the women who did not make a statement why they did not do so. We asked similar questions of those women who had made a statement but later retracted it, and of the women who had seriously considered withdrawing their statements (nine of the eleven women whose partners or ex-partners were successfully prosecuted). There are two main reasons why prosecution may not be pursued by women who supported arrest. One is that the arrest achieved the changes which the victim sought in her partner’s behaviour and so prosecution was considered to be no longer necessary. The other is that the costs of prosecution outweigh, or are thought to outweigh, its benefits (see also Walker and McNicol 1994). Sometimes this is because it is feared that prosecution will not solve the problem or will lead to more violence, while at other times it is because the ‘primary violence’ is a lesser evil than that which prosecution could precipitate. Fear that prosecution will not solve the problem or that it will lead to more violence is itself a product of men’s controlling behaviours. Just as controlling behaviours create this fear, the fact that women act on these fears by not pursuing a prosecution allows these controlling behaviours to work, creating a vicious circle from the point of view of the victim, where feelings of love and guilt may also be manipulated. A small proportion of the women wished to stop prosecution proceedings because the initial police action, typically the initiation of charges, had effected the changes sought in their partners’ behaviour such that the victims felt that prosecution was no longer necessary to protect them from further abuse (see also Buzawa and Buzawa 1996). Some wanted their partners to be arrested as summary justice for either the retributive or the deterrent effect, but did not want it to go any further. Sophie, for example, wanted her husband to be arrested: ‘to show him that he can’t treat me like this. However I don’t really want to get him into trouble. I was always worried in the past that to call the police 23


would start the ball rolling and it would go too far . . . I just want him to stop thinking he can treat me like this.’ Other women found that, whilst initially they had wanted to pursue a prosecution, once they had started the process they realized that other means would better enable them to achieve a cessation of violence. Many recognized that firstly, prosecution would not necessarily achieve this end and, secondly, that prosecution might not be necessary to achieve this end. Some felt that physical separation from their violent partner would be a more productive goal and that once they had decided to leave they no longer saw the point in pursuing a prosecution. When asked why she withdrew her statement, Janet replied: ‘I left him and I’d seen a solicitor and started divorce proceedings. As I’d got away from the violence there didn’t seem to be any point in getting him prosecuted.’ Fear of retaliation was the main reason women offered for refusing to make a statement or for withdrawing or considering withdrawing statements once made (see also Hanmer and Saunders 1987, and Radford 1987; Buzawa and Buzawa 1996). All but two of the women mentioned fear of retaliation with regard to either the current incident or a previous incident. As Claire said: ‘He kept saying that if I went through with the case he’d retaliate by getting custody of the kids and burning the house down. He constantly intimidated me until I withdrew my statement. I was scared of going to court.’ Dawn gave a similar explanation for her failure to support a prosecution: ‘He head butted me because I’d given a statement so I withdrew it. I didn’t tell the police why I was withdrawing—I felt that I was in a no-win situation.’ Some of the women argued that their problems could not be solved by the criminal justice system. Different women have different aims and needs and therefore call the police for different, although often overlapping, reasons. Not surprisingly, prosecution as the only option is particularly unhelpful for some. As Carol put it: I didn’t want to end the relationship so I saw no point in prosecution. I wanted the marriage to work. I love him and I didn’t want to split because of my kids. I didn’t want him to go to prison and a fine wouldn’t have been of any use, although I would have liked him to get some help with trying to find out why he hit out at me like that—and to help make sure he doesn’t do it again. The officer said that if I agreed to him being prosecuted I might be awarded a compensation order but that’s no good because we share our money.

Whilst Carol wanted to stay in the relationship, some women who wanted to leave their violent partners also considered the criminal justice system to be inappropriate. As Leanne explained: ‘I wasn’t sure how going to court would help me—what I really want is him out of my life.’ Others felt that a prosecution could not help them because they believed that the violence was a result of an alcohol or drug problem. They insisted that their partners were good-natured some of the time and that they would cease being violent if only they could get some medical help or counselling. A few of them desperately wanted to know why their partners were violent. These women did not see their violent partners as bad people in need of retribution, but rather as frightened, vulnerable or emotionally scared—the very things which most of the women themselves were. As Paula said, in way of explanation for retracting her statement: ‘I still love him—it’s the drugs and booze that make him violent, underneath he’s a nice man. I don’t want to get him into trouble . . . he can’t cope with drugs and needs help. He’s totally addicted. He had an awful childhood—he was abused by his father—I’m not excusing him for that but it did make him bitter.’ The view expressed by 24


some of these women, that their partners’ violence is not their fault, is open to challenge. For instance, the attribution of blame to external factors such as alcohol or upbringing is a classic form of minimization. However, to the extent that men convince women of this type of view it is important to understand it as people act on the basis of what they believe, even if their beliefs are a social construction. Of course, it is not always clear why women choose not to support a prosecution. There is often more than one reason. Susan had suffered a very serious assault. She withdrew her statement prior to the court case, but after she had taken their children to visit her partner in prison. She explained: I wanted to try again with him for the sake of the kids. I wanted us to be a family again. Also I thought that if I went through with it he’d always blame me if he went to prison. I was afraid of what he’d do to me when he eventually got out. His father is in hospital. He’s dying of cancer and I wouldn’t have forgiven myself if he died whilst Danny was in prison. I felt sorry for him.

In summary, there are two contexts within which prosecution can seem an irrational choice. First, violent men create constraints which make women feel dependent on them and isolated from other support systems; and secondly, prosecutions result in unimaginative and unsatisfactory solutions which, women feel, do not compensate for the costs of pursuing the process.

What Conditions Are Conducive to a Reduction or Cessation in Violence? We have argued that whether victims of domestic violence call the police and follow their cases through depends, to a great extent, on how far they are subject and susceptible to controlling behaviours by their partners and ex-partners. We sought to discover whether police intervention increased the risk of further emotional or physical violence or whether it had no effect on their experiences of violence; and what other factors created changes in women’s violent relationships. All of the interviews conducted informed our understanding of the impact of police intervention but our sample of 21 victims who had not recently reported any domestic disputes provided data which allowed us better to understand the long-term impact of different types of police intervention. These women were asked whether they were still experiencing domestic violence and, if not, whether this was due to police action or other factors. The 21 victims fell into three groups: six who were still experiencing physical violence; six who were no longer being physically victimized but were still being harassed, verbally abused or intimidated (they were, in other words, still being controlled); and nine who were experiencing neither violence nor controlling behaviours. Each group will be discussed in turn. Of the six women who were still experiencing physical violence, only one had ended the relationship with the abuser and he was described as ‘unable to accept that it was over’. The others were still trying ‘to make it work’. Some had made previous attempts to end the relationship but had not been fully committed to permanent separation. For example, two of these women had recently taken out injunctions against their partners but both had invited their partners back into their homes and hence, in the words of one police officer, ‘had helped them to breach the injunctions’. When asked if the injunction was effective, one of these women explained: ‘Not really, because we both ignored it—I’d 25


thought I wanted him out but I found I still loved him.’ None of these women had supported prosecutions against their partners, but, more importantly, none seemed to be committed to ending the relationship. This was the reason they offered for not alerting the police to recent violent episodes. Most argued that they ‘didn’t see the point’ in reporting some incidents or that they could ‘handle it themselves’, whilst conceding that they would report more serious incidents when they needed temporary protection from their partners. As Julie said: ‘At the end of the day, it’s better if we can sort things out ourselves without him getting into trouble.’ These women did not think that they had experienced further violence because they called out the police previously. Anne summed up the response of the majority when she explained: ‘He’s always being violent. If I’d had him arrested he might have punished me immediately after but in general he continues being a bastard whether I call the police or not.’ Or, as another woman said, ‘calling the police, the court case, the bind over—none of it made any difference. He is aggressive because of the drink and the police coming or not won’t make a difference.’ These women did not ‘go underground’ because of police action or inaction. In fact, the police and the criminal justice system appeared to have little or nothing to do with their recent failures to contact the police. These women lived within chronically violent relationships. They considered police action, in the main, to be largely irrelevant to their ongoing experiences of abuse. Of course, this is not to say that police action would never have the result of ceasing violence, temporarily or permanently. However, to date the criminal justice system had not succeeded in deterring these violent men from further abusing their partners. Of the second group of six—those who were still being harassed, verbally abused or intimidated, but who were no longer experiencing physical violence—only two were still living with their partners. The other four had tried to end their relationships but admitted that they felt equivocal about this. One said, ‘He thinks he can come over whenever he likes. Most of the time I let him. I hold onto hope that he’ll change for the better.’ She had earlier said: ‘He’s not hit me for a while [since the last recorded incident] but he’s still critical of me and verbally and mentally abusive. He still feels like he’s got a hold on me because of our children . . . but he’s not hit me since the injunction. He thinks I’ve got stronger—more independent and in control so he doesn’t hit me anymore but he’s still mentally abusive.’ It appears that physical violence ceased because of injunctions, separations and, in one case, a prosecution: ‘the court case shocked him. He didn’t think I had the guts to go that far. He’s nervous because he got a conditional discharge and so he has to behave himself’. But despite these attempts to prevent further physical violence—which seemed to have been successful—these women had either not tried, or were not able, to end permanently their contact with the abuser. Not surprisingly, the controlling behaviours continued. Most of these women said that the police coming out made no difference to future violence, although sanctions or restrictions imposed by the civil (and, occasionally, criminal) courts sometimes had. Police intervention in itself had not generally caused physical violence to cease, although it would often have been a necessary first step for later effective action. Of the third group—the nine for whom all forms of violence had ceased—eight had supported successful prosecutions against their partners, six had divorced them and the partner of one woman had voluntarily moved to another country. Prosecution sometimes seems to send a powerful message to perpetrators. One woman whose ex-husband had been successfully prosecuted believed that it was not the sentence that 26


had stopped his violence but the symbolic function of having him prosecuted and not withdrawing her statement as she had in the past: ‘Going to court has calmed him down—forced him to face what he did rather than denying it as he always had in the past . . . The fact that he was prosecuted meant that he couldn’t blank it out the next day. In the past he got drunk, did something stupid and then the next day denied it and pretended he hadn’t.’ Another woman who had taken out an injunction and divorced her violent husband said, ‘I think it shocked him that I went to court. The whole thing—leaving him, getting the divorce, getting the injunction, going to the refuge—jolted him, made him realize that I wasn’t going to put up with it any more. He’s been fine since. He occasionally comes over but he doesn’t row with me or become aggressive any more because he realizes it’s over and he can’t get away with it any more.’ It seems that prosecution may ‘work’ on its own, but is more likely to have a deterrent effect when it is combined with complementary actions by the victim. Thus many studies have found that legal action does not generally cause a reduction or cessation in violence (see, for instance, Davis and Smith 1995). Other studies have found that not only does arrest not significantly reduce violence (see above) but nor does prosecution (see also, Fagan et al. 1984; Ford and Regoli 1993)12 or civil remedies such as injunctions (Berk et al. 1983). Extrapolating from these studies, it would seem that, where violence did cease against our interviewees, this was as much, if not more, to do with the women’s commitment to ending their relationships (including taking the legal steps required to facilitate this) than with the machinations of the criminal justice process. In many cases, prosecutions only seem like a sensible option and only succeed in ending violence when the victim manages to end the relationship. One might think that ending a relationship necessarily ends violence because of the reduced opportunity for violence. But this is not always so. Indeed, both Hoyle (1998) and Kelly (1998) found that over one-third of their samples of domestic violence victims had ended their relationships at the time of the violence. Indeed, some research has found that women are at an increased risk of violence when they attempt to leave, or have left, abusive relationships (Sevre 1997). Our research indicates that arrest and prosecution can give victims the confidence to ‘do something’ about violence, in particular to end the relationship, but it may have little or no effect unless it is coupled with further, more directly supportive, action. Indeed, most of the women in our sub-sample of 32 victims (those who had reported an assault in the six-week period prior to the start of the fieldwork) indicated that arrest alone made little difference. Where it did do so, the effects were negative as often as they were positive. It is likely that the biggest difference between those women who do not, and those women who do, end their relationships—the most effective way of stopping violence against these specific women—lies in the degree of support they have to do this. Some women draw on their inner resources, while others have family, work or friendship networks to draw on. But as we have seen, powerful controlling behaviours dissolve these sources of support. Ending the relationship and ending the violence requires, for women in this position, a new source of support.

12 Davis and Taylor (1997) found that whilst experimental interventions analysed in their study of the New York police response did not affect actual violence levels, they did increase victims’ confidence in the police, leading them to be more willing to report violence when it occurred. Increased reporting could lead to more effective police intervention (see below for a discussion of what we see to be effective intervention), and, therefore, an eventual reduction or cessation in violence.

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The Role of Domestic Violence Officers We found that almost all of the women who had managed to leave violent relationships had benefited from support from the domestic violence officer. However, the support provided across our three Thames Valley areas was extremely variable. This was because of the different priorities of the different areas. The Home Office Circular (60/1990) recommended the introduction of DVOs to ‘perform a more active role in supporting and reassuring the victim and helping her to make reasoned decisions, and [in] coordinating the work of the welfare and voluntary agencies’. This circular did not, however, prioritize the different functions of DVOs. This would not be a problem if Domestic Violence Units were well resourced. Since most DVUs consist of only one DVO, sometimes without any administrative support, prioritization is necessary. Sometimes this is done in the form of local area policies and sometimes it is worked out ‘on the ground’ by the DVOs themselves. We found a variety of responses to this situation, as did Grace (1995). Some DVOs centre their work around securing successful prosecutions, some adopt a largely coordinating function, whilst some see their main task as providing support for victims in whatever ways best suit their different social and psychological needs. However, given limited resources, support could only be provided for a relatively small proportion of victims who came into contact with the DVO. All three of the DVOs recommended injunctions and referred women to sympathetic solicitors, Women’s Aid, Victim Support and various other support agencies. In area X the DVO was, as a matter of local policy, rarely interventionist in any other way. She made few contacts with victims, and did so on a reactive basis only. Follow-up visits when they were made at all, were made by the original officer who attended the incident, not by the DVO. In area Y the DVO was more interventionist, and the DVO in area Z, who had the support of another full time officer on three-monthly attachments from shift, was yet more interventionist. As between areas Y and Z, the DVO in area Z accompanied some victims to civil and criminal court proceedings, had more face-to-face contact with victims, and initiated more proactive contact. But both provided a considerable amount of friendship and support. The differences between the three areas were apparent from the different ways our victims spoke of the DVOs—ranging from moderate approval in area X from the few victims who had contact with the DVO, through enthusiastic liking in area Y, to the most remarkable character references in area Z! All but two of those victims who had supported a successful prosecution against their violent partners had considered withdrawing their statements at some time during the process. As discussed above, their main reason for contemplating withdrawal was fear of retaliation. However, the emotional and practical support received from the DVOs enabled them to continue with the prosecution process. DVOs did not, in the main, try to persuade women to make or not to withdraw their statements: ‘She told me she’d respect my wishes and support me whatever I decided to do. But it was obvious she hoped I’d go ahead.’ However, many of the women felt that the DVOs provided the options which made prosecution easier to achieve, that they ‘opened doors’ for them. More important than any specific referral or piece of advice, these officers provided a framework within which women could seek civil or criminal justice solutions, end violent relationships or pursue whatever actions they felt would reduce or end the violence in their lives. As one woman explained: ‘[the DVO] saw me through the whole court 28


process. She was a friend and gave me lots of practical advice. I wouldn’t have gone through this whole awful process without her. I got a lot of strength and support from her. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have gone to court.’ Another woman felt the same: ‘Without her support I wouldn’t have gone this far—I would have withdrawn . . . She was always looking out for me.’ Some of the women talked about how the DVO had tried to convince them that they could cope without their abusive partners, that they could manage emotionally, practically and financially on their own. These women expressed relief at having someone to listen to them and to believe them: ‘She legitimated it all—told me it was serious and wrong and that I didn’t have to put up with it. She was so supportive of me and the children—we couldn’t have coped without her.’ DVOs helped them to regain control of their lives—often for the first time since meeting their violent partner: ‘she gave me my self-respect back’. Although the DVOs rarely maintained contact with women indefinitely, they tended to provide intense periods of support whilst the women were at their most vulnerable. As one woman summed up: ‘She linked me to the outside world. She was a lifeline for a while when I felt like I was falling apart’ (see also, Grace 1995). For the purpose of this paper, the key question is whether higher levels of intervention led to the successful resolution of the cases in which intervention occurred (i.e. whether there was a significant reduction or cessation of violence). Although our data do not allow us to be precise about the incidence of violence following police intervention, there were more ‘successes’ in area Y than in area X, and area Z was the most ‘successful’ of all. Significantly, there was only a weak association between success and intervention in areas X and Y (where the intervention was of a less personal and less emotionally supportive kind than in area Z), but a strong association in area Z. This is not surprising. The Crown Prosecution Service, for instance, acknowledges that many victims of domestic violence need emotional and physical support if they are to continue prosecution (Cretney and Davis 1997) (and, we might add, take other steps needed to end the violence they suffer). Similarly, research on learning disabled victims—who are also vulnerable—found that intensive pre-trial support, geared to the particular needs of the individual victim, was often vital in securing both a successful court result and their stable emotional well-being (Sanders et al. 1997).

A Victim Empowerment Model Let us draw the threads of the argument together. The ‘victim choice’ position leads to very large numbers of women not seeking arrest or prosecution. The police and Crown Prosecution Service almost invariably accede to these choices. Yet in very many cases the violence against these women continues. Their choices are reluctant choices, a product of the coerced circumstances of their relationships. But, given those circumstances, they are often rational choices. The women often fear, with some justification, that their partners will retaliate violently or with intensified controlling behaviours. Frequently they are put under pressure by their community or extended family, or alternatively they are isolated from sources which might support an alternative course of action. Unless they leave the relationship, their suffering is likely to increase. All this, and for what? As Cretney and Davis (1997) point out, court dispositions rarely ‘bite’ on perpetrators when 29


prosecutions are followed through, leaving victims feeling ‘let down’ and perpetrators unscathed. The ‘pro-arrest’ position has been devised in the belief that arrest (and, in the pro-charge variant, prosecution) reduces violence. But arrest, whether or not followed by prosecution, does not in itself achieve this. Significantly, both our research and that of others has found that arrest can help to reduce the violence of the arrestee only when it is part of a package of wider social interventions (including, for example, treatment programmes) and when recidivism is discouraged by a range of psycho-social mechanisms (see Dutton 1995 for an overview of this literature). Arrest and prosecution may have a more general deterrent effect, but there is no evidence either way on this. As Stanko (1995) points out, neither Sherman’s original study, nor the replication studies, looked at women’s survival strategies or asked what it was in the apparently successful police strategies which seemed to reduce male violence. What, then, are the benefits and disbenefits of a simple pro-arrest policy? The only apparently certain benefit is symbolic, in that arrest (and, in particular, prosecution) can send an important message to perpetrators. But weak court sanctions could, arguably, undermine that message, and the traditional alternatives—harsh punitive measures—were genuinely not sought by many of the women in our research. The disbenefits are addressed in the paragraph above. A possible solution to these problems is the idea that victims can use the law as a power resource (Ford 1991). Taking his cues from studies which found that victimized women can be active help-seekers, Ford looked at how some victims file but then drop criminal charges against their partners as a rational power strategy for determining the future of their relationships. For example, women can use the threat of arrest and prosecution to bargain for satisfactory arrangements (concerning, for example, child-care) and to deter their partners from repeated violence without having to support a continued prosecution. Our data certainly endorse Ford’s argument as far as some women are concerned. However we have seen that many women are not successful in their engagement in this power game and, indeed, never even enter into it because of the power of their partners’ or even ex-partners’ controlling behaviours. In other words, while Ford sees the prosecution of violent men as a way in which women gain control in a relationship, we would argue that it is their lack of control which often precludes their taking up prosecution in the first place. Ford’s endorsement of what amounts to a version of the ‘victim choice’ model does not take account of the coercive relationships within which choices are made. However, Ford was right to move away from the accepted ‘wisdom’ that victim non-cooperation is a problem and to move away from focusing policy on criminal proceedings instead of on ending violence. Since the key to ending violence is to end abusive relationships, and many abused women find this difficult because of the controlling behaviours of their partners, a counterweight to the isolation and lack of confidence created for these women is needed. In other words, abused women need to be empowered to make the choices which are most likely to lead to an end to the violence. We have found that counterweight to be present in the work of some DVOs. They provide help and access to support networks that these women never had or which has been eroded by their violent partners. This important part of the role has resulted in DVOs establishing very good working relationships with other relevant statutory and voluntary support services. Not only does this mean that they can refer victims on to other 30


agencies, but it makes it more likely that those other agencies will refer victims who have not reported the offence on to the police. This means that more and more women will eventually have the opportunity to benefit from contact with the DVOs. Research shows that only a very small number of victims fail to seek help from at least one agency (Hutchison and Hirschel 1998). An interesting feature of DVUs is that they were set up to coordinate information and support services and to assist women in their pursuit of prosecution. The more extensive support which we found in area Z and, to a lesser extent, in area Y was not originally envisaged by the Home Office or the Thames Valley Police. This work developed as a result of pressure from victims and what the DVOs themselves perceived as the needs of these women. This has led to insufficient resources and training for the tasks which the best of them have taken up. Consequently, the majority spoke of the stress and frustration associated with the job, which may be why half of the DVOs who were in position when this fieldwork was conducted had left when we made further enquiries six months later. It seems, then, that pro-arrest policies, albeit not fully implemented, and the establishment of DVUs, have led to a policy in some areas somewhere between all three models set out in the second section of this paper. In area Z, though, an embryonic victim empowerment model has emerged almost by accident. Arrest is not automatic, even where there is evidence of an offence. But women who choose arrest are supported in that choice by the DVO. The DVO then provides further support, where necessary, so that women who feel that prosecution will help them to achieve their primary goals are assisted in that endeavour. Furthermore, support and assistance is provided in relation to civil remedies, child arrangements, separation, divorce, and so forth and even if prosecution is not sought. What would be the elements of a fully worked out victim empowerment model? First, a pro-arrest policy is vital. Arrest gives victims time and space in which to decide what to do. However, many arrests occur in the evening and night, so arrest alone rarely provides sufficient time for communication to be established with the DVO. As Stanko says, ‘To assume, as it appears Sherman and his colleagues have, that police “empower” women with their “strength” to arrest is naive. Police do not, in and of themselves, empower.’ (1995: 39). The second requirement, therefore, is that perpetrators be bailed, pending a prosecution decision and with appropriate conditions where necessary (non-molestation, residence, and so forth).13 Thirdly, the DVO must be put in contact with the victim as soon as possible after arrest to establish or re-establish links with her so that the time and space provided by arrest and police bail is used constructively. There is a need for quick follow-up intervention by DVOs because research suggests that the increased risk of repeat victimization is especially high with domestic violence victims—typically within 11 days following an incident (Lloyd et al. 1994). Fourth, the DVO and victim together have to assess the victim’s needs and desires in relation to the violence, the relationship and ancillary matters. As Stanko (1997) has argued, intervention services need to be flexible. They need to give appropriate advice to women at various stages of exiting from violence and be supportive of their choices (see also Brown 1997).

13

Under the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994, s. 27, the police can grant conditional bail.

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Some initiatives have given a lead here. A number of American jurisdictions have combined a law enforcement response with a social work perspective. Most have experimented with community intervention projects in which ‘victim advocates’ work cooperatively with law enforcement officials. The advocates offer support, give women information about the legal system, and inform them about further counselling and advocacy services that are available. However, these advocates seem to focus on offering support and information which would encourage victims to pursue legal remedies rather than attempting to discover and facilitate other, perhaps more suitable, options (Gamache et al. 1988; Steinman 1990). A more rounded approach is that of ‘Domestic Violence Matters’ (DVM), a pilot scheme in Islington (Kelly 1999). Here, civilians working with the police offer wide support to abused women within 24 hours, where possible, of the incident being reported. All of these initiatives have a pro-charge orientation. Under a victim empowerment model, the question of whether or not to prosecute would follow on from the victim’s assessment of the direction in which she wants her life to go. The choice would be that of the victim—i.e. the pro-arrest policy would not be one also of pro-charge—but it will, in this model, take place in a less coerced context than is usual at present. In order to achieve these aims, DVUs and DVOs on the lines of area Z are needed, but under clearer policies and with better resources. If these measures are put in place, we may expect to see more victims choosing to prosecute (and choosing to carry this decision through to a conclusion) but it would not be the choice of all. It is interesting to see that the DVM initiative did not cause a dramatic rise in prosecution rates despite this being one of the initiative’s objectives (Kelly 1998). We would not endorse the prosecution-centredness of Ford’s argument, in which he seems to assume that the best way of assuming control is always by prosecuting or threatening to do so. This will be true for many victims, but not for all. For other victims there will remain substantial disbenefits which will continue to mean that prosecution is, at best, an irrelevance.

Conclusion The argument against prosecution-centredness, and in favour of victim (empowered) choice, has been made from the perspective of individual victims. However, there are future victims to consider as well. Many domestic violence perpetrators move from the violent domination of one woman to the violent domination of the next. Future victims will only be protected if the man’s violence is confronted and dealt with head on. At present, prosecution secures the confrontation, but rarely achieves more. It seeks to deter and to send a symbolic message that domestic violence is a crime, is wrong, and should be punished. But this is not usually very effective in instrumental terms. In an attempt to increase their effectiveness on a broader canvas (or to appear to do so— Garland 1996) sentences have been ratcheted up to create the worst penal crisis in recent British history. A way should be found to break this spiral of repression and social exclusion, rather than dragging domestic violence into this punitive arena. A more inclusive approach, which could also be more effective, would be to develop more extensive perpetrators’ programmes.14 This can be done as part of the array of 14

There are, at present, moves to introduce such programmes within the Thames Valley Police area.

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sanctions available to the courts. It can also be done in the context of restorative justice and diversion from prosecution. Just as, following the US example, in drug-related offending there is a move towards emphasizing rehabilitation rather than prosecution (with the threat of prosecution as an incentive to engage in the rehabilitative programme) so we might see the same movement in respect of domestic violence (see Braithwaite and Daly 1994). Although, as we noted earlier (footnote 3), some feminists argue that restorative approaches legitimate male violence (see also Stubbs 1997), it seems to us that whether or not this is true is an empirical matter. In other words, it depends on the particular restorative approach adopted, and is not inherent to restorative approaches per se. Attempting to reduce domestic violence through rehabilitation, to use an old-fashioned word, rather than through punitiveness is consistent with the wishes of many victims. We have seen that many women were more concerned to end violence (albeit primarily in relation to themselves) than to punish. And Davis and Cretney (1997) found that many women who supported prosecution were disappointed that court dispositions rarely provided any kind of help or treatment. For those women whose wishes not to prosecute would be respected under our proposed model, perpetrators’ programmes could still be used in a diversionary context; successful completion of a programme could even be made a condition of diversion. We began this article by asking what the point is of making domestic violence a crime. Our answer is that under most current and past policies there is little point. Under a victim empowerment model there would be more point. Even then, the fact would remain that, as foreshadowed in our introduction, prosecution is and will remain frequently counterproductive. For all prosecution, in itself, does is to apply a legal sanction, usually a weak one, as if that were a solution. It does not address the social context. Domestic violence is, however, as much a social as a legal problem. Pro-arrest and pro-charge policies alone attempt to solve the problem through legal means alone. The victim empowerment approach, by contrast, would employ pro-arrest (but not pro-charge) policies as a way of bringing a full range of social and legal forces to bear on domestic violence problems. The role of legal sanctions in each case would vary from being central, marginal or completely irrelevant according to the particular circumstances of each individual victim. The idea that solutions can, in general, be found solely through legal means—which is what pro-arrest and pro-charge policies imply—is simply untenable. REFEREN CES ADLE R , Z. (1987), Rape on Trial. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. ARCH ER , J. (1994), ‘Power and Male Violence’, in J. Archer, ed., Male Violence. London: Routledge. AL V I , S. and SE L B E E , K. (1997), ‘Dating Status Variations and Woman Abuse: A Test of the Dependency, Availability, and Deterrence (DAD) Model’, Violence Against Women, 3/6. BE RK , R. A., BE R K , S. F., LOS E K E , D. R. and RAU MA , D. (1983), ‘Mutual Combat and Other Family Violence Myths’, in D. Finkelhor, R. J. Gelles, G. T. Hotaling and M. A. Strauss, eds., The Dark Side of Families: Current Family Violence Research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. BRAITH W A I T E , J. and DA L Y , K. (1994), ‘Masculinities, Violence and Communitarian Control’, in T. Newburn and E. Stanko, eds., Just Boys Doing Business?: Men, Masculinities and Crime. London: Routledge.

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