Using data from a study on police officers' encounters with domestic violence victims and a study on children experiencing domestic violence, this article examines how officers decide whether and how to communicate with children in emergency situations, and how children experience these encounters. Officers' views on such communication diverge; usually, communication is motivated by the need to determine next actions. Children recall little communication and describe officers as faceless, nameless and genderless. The authors argue for recognizing the preventive role of officers on emergency calls. Official policies and guidelines should formally acknowledge and clarify the importance of communication with children.
Over recent decades domestic violence or family violence, violence against women and child abuse has received much attention in the media, in political discourse and in social research. However, abuse of older adults arouses limited interest. In government action against domestic violence and in police guidance manuals, the elderly receive little attention. The aim of this article is primarily to demonstrate how the police attempt to prevent elder abuse in close relationships, especially in parent-child relationships. Police work connected to criminal elder abuse has been documented through statistics, and the numbers reveal that very few cases end up in court. Most of this article focuses on prevention and assistance. Despite resistance among the elderly to involve the police in their desperate situations, policing at least has the capacity to make a difference for many elderly victims, especially through home visits, motivation, dialogue and interdisciplinary collaboration. Yet some dilemmas remain when policing elder abuse. This article highlights some contradictions between the need of the police to produce criminal cases (often contrary to the interests of the victims) on the one hand, and the police's duty to prevent further abuse on the other. Research has documented that help and prevention measures in question make the situation even worse for the victims they are meant to help.
Penal provisions designed to cover repeated and severe abuse in close relationships have been in effect in Norway for the past decade (section 219 of the former Criminal Code, sections 282/283 of the revised Criminal Code). This article evaluates these legal provisions, and in particular, explores the struggle of the police with severe domestic violence. Specially trained police officers and others working in law enforcement, such as prosecutors and judges, have participated as informants. It is insufficient merely to read the legal text to understand what it criminalizes-it is necessary to examine the legal sources. According to the Supreme Court of Norway, a regime of control and violence in a close relationship must be evident. To identify such a regime, the police cannot pay exclusive attention to the specific incidents of physical violence but must focus on what occurs between these events. The totality and complexity of domestic abuse, including psychological violence, is expected to play a central role in police investigation. However, this kind of policing challenges the police role. Police interviews in these cases require particular patience, understanding, empathy and calm. The article will prove that a large proportion of the investigation ends in dismissed cases, but the author will argue that law enforcement is only one side of policing. The police may achieve just as much by means of victim support and prevention measures.
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