The Politics of Policing Family Violence in New Zealand: An Overview
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Date
2012
DOI
Open Access Location
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
School of Psychology, Massey University,
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Abstract
In 2012, the New Zealand Police introduced a new
Family Violence Policy to guide police response to
family violence occurrences including a new tool
for assessing situational risk factors. The Ontario
Domestic Assault Risk Assessment (ODARA) is
a 13 item actuarial measure for intimate partner
assault recidivism developed in Canada (Hilton,
Harris, Rice, Houghton & Eke, 2008). It is crucial
to understand how the changes in police policy
and procedures that involve ODARA affect
the safety and wellbeing of domestic violence
victims. Victim safety and protection are policing
priorities. The police response and understanding
of family violence has changed over the last 40
years from police viewing the domestic incident
as a private relationship matter with minimal
police intervention, to a criminal investigation
developing from the pro arrest strategy (Ford,
1986; Ford, 1993). This paper traces the history
of policing policy changes in family violence that
led to the introduction of ODARA in 2012. Four
key turning points are identified, with the aim of
gathering an understanding of how policy emerges
in policing family violence.
Description
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License
Keywords
Policing, Family violence, ODARA,, Risk assessment, History