Are Same-Sex Victims More At Risk?

A reader submitted this great article and I wanted to share it with the rest of you. The piece focused on police officer’s general knowledge, experience and training with same-sex domestic violence in Illinois.

The piece found that police officers encounter same-sex violence regularly, but that they are generally unprepared to handle it, which makes it much more difficult for officers to deal with.  A lack of training in same-sex violence is the primary reason for this.

General Findings:

1: 82 officers (90% of the sample) had responded to a same-sex domestic violence call at least once during their career.

2: 74 officers (81.3%) reported that their departments had no procedure in place that directly addressed same-sex domestic violence.

3: 26 officers (29.5%) reported training in same-sex domestic violence; 61 officers (70.5%) reported that no classes or lectures were provided.

4: 82.6% of officers felt their department was doing an adequate job handling same-sex domestic violence and 17.4% said they weren’t doing enough to help the population.

Citation: Tesch, Brian, Debra Bekerian, Peter English, and Even Harrington. (2010). Same-sex domestic violence: why victims are more at risk. International Journal of Police Science and Management, 12, 526-535.