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Policing Rural Woman Battering: The Compromised Enforcement of Law (From Rural Woman Battering and the Justice System: An Ethnography, P 91-126, 1998 - See NCJ-170618)

NCJ Number
170622
Author(s)
N Websdale
Date Published
1998
Length
36 pages
Annotation
Rural police agencies in Kentucky and elsewhere do not deal with domestic violence in the same way, and the policing of rural domestic violence is not a monolithic phenomenon.
Abstract
A significant feature of rural policing is that local police officers often know the abuser socially, sometimes share his world view and social connections, and often have relatives in common. Rural policing is affected by a cluster of collective values, beliefs, and ideas that tend to make rural women subordinate to rural men. These patriarchal attitudes must be understood against the wider social position of women in general. They also demonstrate some local police officers are less willing to intervene in domestic violence situations and are less inclined to arrest husbands who they feel should be in a dominant position in the family. Battered women report a significant number of rural police officers fail to take woman battering seriously. In addition, rural police officers vary considerably in their attitudes toward domestic violence calls. Many feel frustrated because in most cases the victim will not file a criminal complaint against her abuser. More police resources and better training of police officers represent only part of the answer to improving law enforcement's response to domestic violence. Police officers in rural areas face unique difficulties of covering vast distances in short periods of time to arrive at emergency situations. In responding to these situations, they can serve emergency protective orders and can use informants to provide information that will lead to the apprehension and conviction of abusers. The author concludes the sociocultural isolation of women and control tactics of abusers coexist with long-established traditions of rural patriarchy and serve to undermine the potential power of local police officers to confront woman battering. 17 notes

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