Anna Corbo Crehan

Enhancing Police Responses to Domestic Violence Incidents Reports From Client Advocates in New South Wales

In an online survey about experiences with the police complaint system, 239 client advocates described a recent incident in which a client with grounds to lodge a complaint declined to do so. Almost one third of those incidents involved domestic violence. Thematic analysis of case descriptions revealed that many police did not take domestic violence reports seriously. A typology of problematic police conduct was developed. Many officers failed to observe current procedures and appeared to lack knowledge of relevant laws. Citizens feared retaliatory victimization by police and/or perceived that complaining was futile. Implications of these findings are reviewed in light of procedural justice theory.

Watching out for the watchers

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to enhance the understanding of the situational vulnerabilities faced by police qua police, with a view to identifying the best ways of addressing those vulnerabilities. Design/methodology/approach The “theoretical vocabulary for analysing vulnerability” developed by Mackenzie et al. (2014) provides the framework for most of the discussion. Discussions of self-care as developed for other professions have informed the discussion on self-care for police officers. Findings The paper draws two key conclusions: that a fuller understanding of police officers’ vulnerability qua police needs to extend to a consideration of officers’ off-duty time, and that police officers need to be better apprised of the situational vulnerabilities they will face qua police officers so that subjective experiences of those vulnerabilities are not unnecessarily traumatic. Finally the paper identifies the need for the professional obligation to engage in efficacious self-care practices to be applied to police officers to ensure responsibility for their situational vulnerabilities is fairly distributed between themselves and their organisation. Practical implications The insights identified in the paper have implications for better addressing the ways in which police officers cope, and are assisted to cope, with the distressing and disturbing aspects of their work. Originality/value A clear need for better understanding of, and responses to, the vulnerabilities to which police work gives rise is required, given current rates of suicide, and mental and psychological injury amongst police officers.

Some implications of the moral vulnerability of police

The situational sources of vulnerability to which police are subject when on duty have been well documented. However, the moral vulnerability of police has received less attention, and this is a significant oversight given that increasing a person’s vulnerability puts them at increased risk of harm and so is prima facie wrong (in the absence of any very good reasons to the contrary). In this chapter, two important senses of moral vulnerability are clarified and applied to two contemporary issues in policing: the defensiveness of police when called to account for their actions or inactions, and their use of tasers. This perspective on the issues allows for some important ethical insights to be identified. In addition, the discussion demonstrates that moral vulnerability is a susceptibility to very real harms and, therefore, where such vulnerability exists, it ought to impact on our ethical assessments.