Relationship Between the Male Police Officer's Response to Victims of Domestic Violence and His Personal and Family Experience (From The Victimology Handbook: Research Findings, Treatment, and Public Policy, P 77-93, 1990, Emilio Viano, ed. -- See NCJ-126951)

• NCJ Number: 126957
• Author(s): S M Stith
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 17 pages
• Sale Source: Garland Publishing, Inc.
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Several personal and family-experience variables for a sample of male police officers correlated individually and in combination with officer negative attitudes toward female domestic violence victims.

Abstract

Data came from questionnaires distributed to 240 police officers from 3 sheriff's departments and 4 police departments in northeast Kansas. Ninety-seven completed questionnaires were returned, yielding a sample of 72 married male police officers. To measure each officer's response to domestic-violence victims, each was asked to rate his likelihood of responding in certain ways (from 0 to 100 percent) to two vignette descriptions of domestic violence incidents. The response was coded as "antivictim" if the officer reported that the would "arrest the women," "warn the woman of arrest," or "discourage the woman from seeking arrest." Officer variables measured were age and education, level of sex-role egalitarianism, reported level of stressful life events, attitude toward marital violence, and method of handling conflict in his own family. Age, education, egalitarianism, marital stress, stressful life events, approval of marital violence, and use of violence in the officer's own marriage together predicted a significant amount of the variance in officer antivictim response. A few of the variables correlated individually with antivictim response. Implications are drawn for future research as well as police training and policy. 1 table and 23-item bibliography