The Response of Law Enforcement to Violence and Abuse - Who Calls The Police?

In the past, most women did not report incidents of abuse to the police. Several studies estimate that only about 10% of battering incidents are ever reported to authorities. The 1985 National Family Violence Survey found that only 6.7% of all husband-to-wife assaults were reported to police. When the assaults are categorized by severity as measured on a Conflict Tactics Scale, only 3.2% of minor violence cases and 14.4% of severe violence cases were reported.

There is some evidence that over time, slightly higher percentages of female victims have reported instances of intimate partner violence to the police. In "The 'Drunken Bum' Theory of Wife Beating" (Physical Violence in American Families [Piscataway, NJ: Transaction, 1990]), Glenda Kaufman Kantor and Murray Straus estimated that between 7% and 14% of intimate partner assaults are reported to police. A 1995 study using National Crime Victimization Survey data made the most optimistic projections, estimating that 56% of battering incidents were reported to the police. By 2002 the estimate drawn from the NCVS data was that slightly more than half of female victims filed police reports.

The women who chose not to report their abuse cited a variety of reasons, including fear of retaliation, loss of income, or loss of their children to child protection authorities. When abuse is reported to law enforcement agencies, it is often by health care professionals from whom the woman has sought treatment for her injuries. In many states, health professionals are mandated by law to report all instances of domestic violence to law enforcement authorities.

In an examination of the law enforcement response to mandated reporting by health professionals, Laura E. Lund surveyed domestic violence experts at thirty-nine police agencies in California. Her resulting report is titled "What Happens when Health Practitioners Report Domestic Violence

TABLE 7.1

Percent distribution of police response to a reported incident, by type of crime, 2002
		Percent of incidents
Type of crime	Number of incidents	Total	Police came to victim	Victim went to police	Contact with police—don't know how	Police did not come	Not known if police came	Police were at the scene
Note: Detail may not add to total shown because of rounding.
1Estimate is based on about 10 or fewer sample cases.
2Includes verbal threats of rape and threats of sexual assault.
SOURCE: "Table 106. Personal and Property Crimes, 2002: Percent Distribution of Police Response to a Reported Incident, by Type of Crime," in Criminal Victimization in the United States, 2002 Statistical Tables, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, National Crime Victimization Survey, 2002, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/abstract/cvusst.htm (accessed October 12, 2004)
Crimes of violence	2,252,570	100%	76.0%	5.9%	0.0%1	12.5%	1.6%	3.9%
Rape/sexual assault2	133,130	100	63.8	11.41	0.01	20.71	2.41	1.81
Robbery	315,980	100	80.7	8.51	0.01	8.01	0.91	1.91
Aggravated assault	446,860	100	84.5	3.71	0.01	6.71	0.41	4.71
Simple assault	1,356,600	100	73.4	5.4	0.01	14.7	2.21	4.3
Purse snatching/pocket picking	72,040	100	47.6	21.61	0.01	27.81	3.01	0.01
Property crimes	6,909,730	100%	67.3%	5.1%	0.0%1	24.4%	1.9%	1.2%
Household burglary	1,726,780	100	85.4	2.4	0.01	10.2	1.41	0.61
Motor vehicle theft	822,620	100	73.6	3.9	0.01	17.6	2.01	2.91
Theft	4,360,330	100	58.9	6.5	0.01	31.3	2.2	1.2

Injuries to the Police? A Study of the Law Enforcement Response to Injury Reports" (Violence and Victims, vol. 14, no. 2, September 1999). She found that almost all had standard procedures for responding to domestic violence reports from health practitioners. But while the law mandates health practitioners to make these reports by telephone and in writing, she found that fewer than onequarter of the police agencies consistently received both types of reports from health care providers.

Lund questioned whether California law enforcement agencies have adequate policies and procedures in place to respond to domestic violence complaints from health practitioners. Of the thirty-nine law enforcement agencies, thirty reported that when they receive a handwritten domestic violence report from a health care provider, they first search their own records to see whether the case is already under investigation. Many agencies also search for previous domestic violence cases or other crimes involving the alleged perpetrator.

Twenty-five law enforcement agencies said that if the health care professional does not report the abuse by telephone, it may be days or even weeks before police receive a handwritten abuse report. Often, the agencies noted, the reports lack essential information, such as a contact number for the victim, making it very difficult for investigators to match the incident with a crime report. In many cases the written reports from health practitioners cannot be matched to a previous report of an incident.

Most law enforcement agencies said they do attempt to conduct investigations when they receive these reports, known as "unmatched reports." The most common agency response to unmatched reports was to contact the victims. Fifteen agencies said this was their usual response or their only response to unmatched reports. Only two of the fifteen agencies responded that they also attempt to contact the health practitioner who made the report and only one agency said it sends an officer to talk to the victim if the health practitioner provides an address but no phone number. It was unusual for agencies to have a policy of dispatching an officer based on an unmatched health practitioner report.

Lund argued that because law enforcement agencies receive relatively few health practitioner reports, with most of the reports received originating in hospital emergency rooms, problems exist in the implementation of mandatory reporting. The scarcity of the reports may be due, in part, to a lack of understanding of the law by health professionals, insufficient training in reporting techniques, or an unwillingness to report.

Lund also faulted police responses to reports from health practitioners, asserting that simply to report and respond is not adequate. Rather, health practitioners must report effectively and agencies must respond appropriately in order to help, rather than harm, domestic violence victims.