Understanding the Components and Determinants of Police Attitudes Toward Intervention in gender violence
Police officers are often the first interveners in cases of gender violence and are essential to ensure the victim's safety. Despite the laws on gender violence, police response is not consistent, with police attitudes playing a key role according to recent literature.
Celia Serrano Montilla, Luis M. Lozano, María Alonso Ferres, Inmaculada Valor Segura and José Luis Padilla, CIMCYC researchers, have conducted a systematic review to identify the components of police attitudes towards intervention in gender violence and their determinants. The published evidence on the role of attitudes and their determinants has contributed to the proposal of a theoretical framework and an evaluation instrument aimed at police officers. For this purpose, a search was carried out in several databases such as Web of Science, and 57 articles were included in the review.
The studied components of police attitudes toward gender violence intervention extracted were: tolerance of gender violence, minimal police involvement, unsupportive and supportive attitudes toward the legal system and legislation against gender violence, understanding of the complex nature of abuse, and intervention in gender violence as an important police task.
The results confirmed the strong role of individual (years of experience as officers) and situational (physical and visible harm to the victim) determinants in police attitudes towards intervention in gender violence, while organizational (police culture of the police station) and social (country) determinants are less relevant.
In addition to providing scientific evidence on the essential role of personal and professional police background and situational characteristics of gender violence events, the systematic review proposes a framework on which to build an operational definition of police attitudes towards gender violence intervention. Generating assessment instruments on well-defined indicators of the construct is an essential requirement to contribute to appropriate uses of police attitude assessments, including selection of officers for specialized gender-based violence units, training courses on police attitudes, etc..
Contact
-Celia Serrano Montilla: celiaserrano@ugr.es
-Luis M. Lozano: lmlozano@ugr.es
-María Alonso Ferres: maalfe@ugr.es
-Inmaculada Valor Segura: ivalor@ugr.es
-José Luis Padilla: @email
Full reference
Serrano-Montilla, C., Lozano, L. M., Alonso-Ferres, M., Valor-Segura, I., & Padilla, J. L. (2021). Understanding the Components and Determinants of Police Attitudes Toward Intervention in Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: A Systematic Review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 152483802110293. https://doi.org/10.1177/15248380211029398