Assessing Police and Protective Order Reports of Violence

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the amount of agreement between police and victims' reports of domestic violence. Data were examined from 77 couples in which the female member of the couple filed for a protective order and the couple had contact with the police about domestic violence. The hypothesis tested was that police and victim reports of physical violence would have some measure of agreement due to the serious nature of physical violence but that there would be little agreement for verbal violence or menacing behavior. Victims reported significantly more physical violence than police; however, there was a significant correlation between victims' reports of physical violence and police reports. These results suggest that although there is some relation between victim and police physical violence reports, victims perceived more violence had occurred than police reported.