Policing and Domestic Abuse: Challenges and Ways to Go

This Special Edition outlines the challenging relationship between policing and domestic abuse, in particular intimate partner violence and stalking. Responding effectively to such crimes is increasingly testing police resources and professionalism all over the world. If these crimes remain simply regarded as ‘misdemeanour’ offences, lives will continue be taken away by abusive men. Societies will face the long-term costly consequences of managing the effects such abuse creates with behavioural and mental health problems (Walby, 2004). In this Special Issue, we have gathered high-quality research conducted by both academics as well as practitioners in the field of policing and violence against women to answer to a basic fundamental question: how can police most effectively respond to and reduce domestic abuse in current or past intimate relationships particularly using a victim-oriented and preventive perspective? This is not to state that there is little discussion about police and domestic abuse. Since the early 1980s, the most cited work by Sherman (1992) did address the question of what works in reducing reoffending in cases of domestic violence, arresting versus non-arresting abusers by the police. In fact, domestic abuse is subject to much discussion at the policy level, but there remains a gap between policies’ apparent attention and consistent actionable change. Proof being that every year thousands of women are still abused, stalked, and even killed (Garcia-Moreno and Watts, 2011).