Patterns of Police Reporting Amongst Victims of Partner Abuse:

Analysis of the SCJS 2008/09

Sarah MacQueenScottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research

Paul NorrisSchool of Social and Political Science

Research Aims

Why?

• Relative lack of quantitative research and analysis on how and why victims of partner abuse come to report their abuse to police

Raises methodological and substantive questions:

• Can research question be addressed with survey data? • Will patterns found in data match those in the wider literature on more

general crime reporting behaviour?

Key research question:

‘Which factors are associated with whether victims report partner abuse to the police?’

Methodological questions:Survey methodology

• Drew on secondary analysis of Scottish Crime and Justice Survey 2008/09 to produce generalisable findings (much existing domestic violence research qualitative)

• Ongoing debate around whether surveys are appropriate for capturing experiences of domestic violence

• Issues of complex causality and contextualisation• Sensitivity of topic• Issues of definition and acceptance• Recall issues

• Steps taken within SCJS overcome these issues• Self completion questionnaire for partner abuse questions• Term ‘partner abuse’ not used in questionnaire

Methodological questions:Focus on the SCJS 08/09

• Sampling frame– Draws solely on private households, exclusion of temporary or communal

accommodation

• Structure of questionnaire – Self-completion questionnaire not completed by all survey respondents, over 60s

and those in most deprived neighbourhoods least likely to complete

• Reference period– Overcome recall difficulties by focusing detailed questions on incidents within

‘last 12 months’ or the ‘most recent’ incident– Not representative of victim experience of continuum of abusive behaviour over

time

• Question wording“Did the police come to know about the most recent incident when your partner or ex partner did these things to you?”

Methodological questions:Diminishing Sample

Sample for Analysis No. of Cases Percentage of Full Sample

Full SCJS sample 16,003 100.0%

Completed Self-completion questionnaire 10,974 68.8%

Had a partner since age 16 10,110 63.1%

Victim of partner abuse 1,975 12.3%

Most recent incident in reference period 345 2.2%

Did not wish to reply 335 2.1%

Events notified to the police 100 n/a

Notified by victim 41 n/a

Methodological questions: Identifying explanatory variables

Key variables identified in previous research as significantly associated with victims of partner abuse (and other crime) reporting to the police :

• Indicators of severity (physical and psychological harm) • Repeat victimisation• Children present during the abuse• Older victims (curvilinear) • Female victims• Social classification• Perception of police and criminal justice system• Neighbourhood characteristics • Partnership status at time of incident• Income• Ethnic minority• Abuser being under the influence of drugs or alcohol • Victim being under the influence of drugs or alcohol • Use of a weapon

Predicting Whether or Not Police Informed About Partner Abuse:

Selected VariablesIndividual characteristics

• Age • Gender • Disability • Attitude to criminal justice system (general and local)

Household/ structural characteristics• Social classification• Household tenure • Living with abusive partner (never, at time of incident, at time of incident

and still is)

Offence characteristics• Did children see or hear most recent incident? • Types of abuse and number of incidents• Effects of abuse

Individual characteristics Odds Ratio Std. Error

Age Years past 16th birthday 1.12 0.05*

Years past 16th birthday squared 0.99 <0.00*

Gender Male Reference

Female 3.02 1.13**

Confidence in Local Police Index of positive perceptions of local police (0-6) 1.19 0.09*

Household/ Structural characteristics

Social Classification Managerial and professional occupations 0.61 0.31

Intermediate occupations 0.78 0.44

Routine and manual occupations Reference

Never worked and long term unemployed 5.23 2.29**

Student 1.99 1.42

Living with partner Never lived with partner Reference

Living with at time of most recent incident but does not now 1.22 0.45

Living with at time of most recent incident and still is 0.11 0.08**

* (p≤.05) ** (p≤.01) , N=320

Predicting Whether or Not Police Informed About Partner Abuse:Results

Abuse characteristics Odds Ratio Std. Error

Variety of Abuse Variety of types of abuse suffered since 16 (maximum 19) 1.14 0.06**

Number of partner abuse incidents in last 12 months

Single incident Reference

More than one incident 2.72 1.05*

Refused to say 1.25 0.61

Don’t know 0.37 0.20

Physical Effects of Most Recent Incident

Count of physical effects in most recent incident (maximum 8) 1.44 0.23*

Psychological Effects of Most Recent Incident

Count of Psychological effects in most recent incident (maximum 9)

0.75 0.10*

Children witness to most recent incident

No children in household at time of most recent incident Reference

Children living in household at time of most recent abuse and did see or hear incident

2.97 1.12**

Children living in household at time of most recent incident but did not see or hear incident

0.92 0.59

* (p≤.05) ** (p≤.01) Fit statistics: Nagelkerke’s adjusted R² .49, Hosmer-Lemeshow .457, -2LL 126.96 (p=<001, compared to intercept only model -2LL 193.752)N=320

Predicting Whether or Not Police Informed About Partner Abuse:Results

Outcomes and Concluding Comments

• Number of limitations with questionnaire and dataset hinder the explanatory power of the model…

• …but led to debate and discussion on amending the partner abuse elements of the SCJS questionnaire

• High proportion of victims of partner abuse are excluded from discussing their experiences within the SCJS

• However, analysis has produced interesting results, reflecting expectations, and relevant to current debates