When Abuse Happens Again: Women's Reasons for Not Reporting New Incidents of Intimate Partner Abuse to Law Enforcement

Abstract

Although most women abused by intimate partners experience a patterned behavior of abuse (by either the same or new partners), little is known about their decision making regarding whether to call the police for subsequent abuse. The current study found that 90 percent of women who had encountered the criminal legal system for previous intimate partner abuse victimizations did not contact the police for some or all recurrences. Qualitative analysis was conducted among a sample of 102 women regarding their reasons for not re-engaging the legal system for subsequent victimizations. The results suggested 5 overall reasons as to why women involved with the criminal legal system choose not to engage the system again.

KEYWORDS:

• criminal legal system
• intimate partner abuse
• law enforcement
• official reporting

Acknowledgments

This project was funded by National Institute of Justice Office of Justice Programs, United States Department of Justice Award 2007-WG-BX-0002 to Anne P. DePrince. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this report are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Department of Justice or the National Institute of Justice. Thank you to our study partners, including the Denver District Attorney's Office, City Attorney's Office, Denver Police Department Victim Assistance Unit, Denver Domestic Violence Coordinating Council, Safe-House Denver, Project Safeguard, AMEND, and the Triage Steering Committee. Thank you to the Traumatic Stress Studies Group, particularly Melody Combs, Claire Hebenstreit, Ryan Matlow, Annarheen Pineda, and Jane Sundermann. Finally, thank you to the women who trusted us with their stories over the year during which we were privileged to get to know them.

Notes

Note: The sum total does not equal 100 because women could give multiple reasons for not reporting to police.

Note: Women could give multiple reasons for not reporting to police. Of 102 respondents, 87 percent cited at least one of the reasons in this table for not reporting incidents of abuse that occurred during the study period. Sample responses in this table represent common responses among the 102 women.

In this article the term intimate partner abuse is used in place of intimate partner violence.

In this article the term criminal legal system is used in place of criminal justice system. Actors within the criminal legal system include law enforcement, judicial, and correctional personnel. Also included are victim advocates.

Many other studies reporting the rate of IPA victims who call the police are based on select samples, such as women in a battered women's shelter or victims’ assistance program (e.g., Coulter et al. 1999; Erez and Belknap 1998; Fleury et al. 1998; Hirschel and Hutchison 2003; Johnson 1990; Langan and Innes 1986; Lee et al. 2010) or women in IPA cases that reached the courts (Fleury-Steiner et al. 2006). Reporting rates using the aforementioned samples is misleading, as women who go to a shelter or are involved with the courts are also more likely to call the police. However, researchers reported that only half of the women in their IPA shelter sample called the police (Coulter et al. 1999).

Several items on the CTS2 are not necessarily violations of the law, but this varies by context (e.g., whether a restraining order is in place). For the purposes of this study we were interested in women's reasons for not reporting any form of IPA to the police.

It is important to note that the sample was unique in that it was made up of women who experienced IPA, had contact with the CLS, experienced IPA again, and decided not to have additional contact with the CLS. At a minimum, these women experienced IPA twice at the hands of their partners and at least one time reached out to the CLS for help, but subsequently decided that they would not engage the CLS again.