Police Prevention of Domestic Homicide: Missed Opportunities and Barriers to Change
Abstract
This integrated-article dissertation focused on the critical role of police in responding to domestic violence (DV) and recognizing the potential risk of adult and child homicides. The first study examined the police role in domestic homicide through an analysis of cases reviewed by the Domestic Violence Death Review Committee in Ontario, Canada. Homicide cases with police contact were found to have 1.6 times more risk factors compared to those without police contact. Cases also show an overall scarcity of formal risk assessments, even when there was prior police contact. The second study was a national survey on the types of structured tools Canadian police officers report utilizing in their risk assessment strategies. Despite police officers reporting frequent use of risk assessments, there was inconsistency in the type of tools utilized other than Ontario police officers who had a preference for the Ontario Domestic Abuse Risk Assessment. The third study involved interviews with police officers to obtain their perspectives on their role in assessing risk for families. Qualitative analyses indicated that police officers face multiple challenges in responding to DV including barriers at the systemic (i.e., lack of collaboration with justice/community partners), organizational (i.e., lack of resources, inapplicable tools), and officer (i.e., lack of awareness/training) levels. The fourth study addressed police officers' perspectives on the barriers and promising practices in providing services to children at the scenes of DV occurrences. The study raised themes on the lack of training in dealing with children and the distrust of many families to mandated agencies like Police and Child Protection.
Overall the four studies highlight the critical role that police can play in potentially preventing deaths related to domestic homicide. Police are involved in high risk and complex cases that require the best possible risk assessment and intervention. Police identified promising practices for change. Officers know that they cannot succeed on their own and require enhanced community collaboration to address DV. These studies call for strengthening efforts at police training and further research to evaluate the effectiveness of their assessments and interventions as well as their collaboration with community partners.