Description
Marital violence is a subject in which all police officers have to take an interest, for it occurs far too often in their professional lives for it to be ignored. My interest in the subject had existed for many years, before being extended in 1981 when attending the first national conference on the subject at the University of Kent at Canterbury. Most police officers deal with a considerable number of 'domestics' throughout their careers and, likewise, sometimes attend domestic murders or suicides, which are often the corollary of domestic disputes. The Canterbury conference generated a fervor, notably among the Women's Aid Federation, who were very vociferous, especially in their criticism of the service given by police to women in marital violence situations.
The seeds were sown that, perhaps, the police did not always deal with this thorny problem with the best interests of the victim in mind. I was (and remain) convinced that most of the police officers with whom I'd served over the previous 30 years. were compassionate individuals, who had dealt fairly and impartially with marital violence as they saw it, while at the same time witnessing the worst side of human nature. However, a nagging doubt remained, and when the opportunity arose to research the subject, with the organizer and co- ordinator of the 1981 conference as one of the supervisors, I jumped at the chance. It has often seemed to some officers, when reading criticisms of police action relating to marital violence, that the police side of the problem was not always understood.
