Criminology Research Council grant ; (9/88)
This project marked the beginning of a five-year study of the Act. In this first stage of the study, all the Family incident Report Forms submitted by police officers in the first six months following the passing of the legislation were analysed. In addition to these documents access was granted to all applications for Intervention Orders filed at police headquarters for the same period (this period was extended to eight months). There was also participation in evening patrols in selected police districts on the weekend over a period of eighteen months.
It is clear from the disputes attended by police, in the first six months of 1988, that calls for their help came from all age groups and from all levels of the socioeconomic scale, ranging from persons (both victims and offenders) in the managerial sector through to those lower levels encompassing the unemployed and home-duties. In addition, disputes were reported from a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds and involving parties who came from all manner of relationships including those not covered by this legislation. It seems, though, at this early stage of the legislation, that there was a strong representation of married parties (about one-third of the disputes involved married persons).
Despite the fear of recrimination and the reluctance of family members to seek legal action against another offending family member (as is well documented in other studies), there is no doubt about the overwhelming predominance of male offenders and female 'victims', regardless of socioeconomic status and ethnicity. But another striking feature of these data (and one that is not so well documented or emphasised in other studies), is the relatively high preponderance of unemployed offenders and victims, although it is important to note here that the police officers tended to describe 'unemployed' females as housewives or engaged in 'home-duties'. To highlight this economic variable, the unemployment rate for offenders averaged 21 per cent (the state unemployment rate at that time was 7 per cent) and this high rate rose to 40 per cent amongst Turkish offenders.
Nearly two-thirds of the disputes were reported after hours, hence highlighting the difficulties facing victims who are seeking help and protection urgently. The tendency for the police to offer advice only and not to carry through at the time of attending the incident with legal refuge, welfare, etc. referrals was also revealed in the data.
When the parties were asked for their opinion as to the cause of the dispute, the most frequent response (51 per cent of the sample) was 'verbal abuse', which was one of the seven categories provided on the form. When we analysed the police qualitative responses to the same question (which they recorded on the forms), we found a greater variety of causes. The police perception of causes emphasised marital or sexual problems (27 per cent), verbal / ongoing arguments in 26 per cent of the disputes, and 25 per cent of the disputes caused by alcohol.
The presence of alcohol (more so than drugs) featured, and the researchers found a strong co-presence of alcohol and violence in that in the 1,213 cases where alcohol was definitely present, 828 cases (or 68 per cent) involved personal violence, in 63 cases (or 5 per cent) a firearm was present or used, and 6 per cent recorded the presence or use of a weapon. To present the results more generally, with reference to violence, more violence against the person was found than against property, and there were 136 cases in which violence with the threat or use of a firearm was present. Thus, 817 disputes (or 25 per cent of the total) involved the use of personal violence, 539 (17 per cent) the use of property violence, 17 (1 per cent) the use of a firearm, and 32 (1 per cent) the use of a weapon. An additional 40 incidents were reported in which a knife was either present or used; thus the last figure is in fact 2 per cent of 72 cases involving the use of a weapon.
The recorded levels of personal violence were highest for those offenders who were retired, in basic manual jobs, in the services and trades, skilled and agricultural workers and the unemployed.
One of the disturbing findings of this analysis was that 65 per cent of the disputes occurred in the presence of children, and of these disputes with children present, 52 per cent were in the presence of children under the age of ten years.
As indicated above, the most frequently cited cause of the disputes (from the responses of the parties involved) was verbal abuse which accounted for 51 per cent of the disputes, followed by harassment in 20 per cent of the incidents and offensive behaviour in 10 per cent of the cases. When the responses of the police officers were analysed, it was found that they considered marital / sexual problems as the cause in 27 per cent of the disputes, followed by verbal argument in 26 per cent, and alcohol in 25 per cent of the incidents. In addition, the police regarded financial / employment issues as the cause in 16 per cent of the disputes.
Nearly 90 per cent of the disputes in the first six months were between parties not currently protected by an Intervention Order, and when asked by the attending police if there was an intention to apply for an Intervention Order, 54 per cent of the victims replied 'no', 21 per cent said 'yes' and 3 per cent replied 'possibly'.
The researchers also noted a very small number of recorded breaches, namely 47 over this six-month period.
In nearly 90 per cent of the disputes analysed, no charges were laid at the time the forms were filled in, and in addition to the above statistic, in 72 per cent of the disputes the police responded with 'no police action', or in other words, were apparently not intending to issue a warrant, to arrest, summons or prepare a brief in relation to the incident. For example, where assault was perceived to be the cause of the dispute, less than half (41 per cent) of these cases resulted in a charge being laid against the offender. To contribute more detail to this finding, those disputes which were caused by assault, where personal violence was reported, and where at least one charge was laid, the total number of such cases was 81 (or 3 per cent of the total). Yet there appeared to be a trend in relation to the presence of alcohol - that is, of those 353 disputes which led to charges being laid, 59 per cent of them had alcohol present - it might be assumed, therefore, that when the police believed alcohol to be present, it is highly likely that they will also press charges, even though 84 per cent of the disputes in which no charges were laid also contained personal violence.
Unemployed offenders were the most likely to be arrested out of the different occupational groupings with an arrest rate of 33 per cent of the total number of arrests made, followed by those offenders in basic manual jobs (18 per cent of the total arrests). It is noted that in relation to 'no police action', those offenders least likely to experience police action were from the professional group followed by those offenders in the managerial group - in other words, 82 per cent of the professional and 77 per cent of the managerial offenders received 'no police action'.
Thus police action following the presence of violence was, according to the material available to us, very limited. When the researchers analysed the reasons police would offer for lack of action, certain attitudes prevailed - for example, in 17 per cent of the disputes they felt there was 'insufficient evidence', and 'no offence disclosed'. In 17 per cent of the cases, it was stated that the victim was unwilling to proceed.
This report reflects the first six months of the operation of the legislation. Another sample of 3,211 Family Incident Report forms is being undertaken for the equivalent period (December through May) of 1989-90.