Community Policing and Family Violence Against Women: Lessons Learned from a Multiagency Collaborative

Abstract

Although traditional attitudes and policies toward family violence are now changing to reflect its magnitude and severity in the United States, multiagency collaborative partnerships have emerged in an effort to develop a system that promotes the safety and welfare of victims of family violence and to prevent further abuse. This study analyzes the process of a multiagency collaborative involving a large, municipal police department and other service providers as an attempt to find meaningful solutions to family violence against women in a southwestern metropolitan area. The results suggest that even in an era of multiagency collaboration, one cannot presume that personnel of relatively autonomous organizations have the organizational capacity and/or the willingness among personnel to truly collaborate. Formidable barriers toward effective collaboration abound and result in a less effective process of negotiation rather than collaboration

Reeling in Disengaged Students: An Assessment of a Countywide Juvenile Court Attendance Program

“…Our process evaluation data reveal that the attendance court program is a public-private, multi-agency partnership that functions smoothly when the attendance court is in session. Its structure is in line with recent innovations in the areas of policing and juvenile justice policy that emphasize the participation of all key stakeholders in an effort to react to and prevent problems (Giacomazzi & Smithey, 2001). Our data indicate that key participants show up at hearings, as well as most students and their parents, and most go home with an appreciation for what the attendance court is attempting to accomplish.…”

The Structure of Policy Networks for Injury and Violence Prevention in 15 US Cities

“…The lack of police and criminal justice collaborators could be related to barriers identified in previous research-for example, the perception of certain stakeholders that law enforcement focuses on punishment rather than on prevention and might dominate collaborative efforts. 39 We do not know if stakeholders in our study were unaware of evidence on the importance of certain sectors (eg, police, transportation) to IVP, were aware but unsuccessful in engaging these sectors, or faced barriers to collaboration. 39 Future work might focus on developing and disseminating (1) strategies for increasing awareness of sectors to include in IVP networks and (2) strategies to understand and overcome barriers to improve engagement of important agencies that are not currently collaborators.…”

“…37,38 However, despite calls for collaboration, efforts to develop partnerships among stakeholders have been hampered by issues of leadership, turf, and omission of key stakeholders. 39,40 As a first step in understanding IVP policy partnerships, we used a network approach to examine IVP policy networks in 15 large US cities. We set out to answer the following questions: 1…”

A Literature Review on Police Encounters with Women

“…Based on the articles reviewed, they suggest that current policing styles such as, community-oriented policing and problem-oriented policing, have a positive impact on women in society and their children (Giacomazzi & Smithey 2001).…”

“…Introduction: Community-Policing can be defined as a policing style that recognizes the lives of individuals and makes efforts to solve the issues of communities (Giacomazzi & Smithey 2001). This strategy is a partnership between communities and policing agencies.…”