years.
† The American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists all endorse screening.
†† See Isaac and Enos (2001) for guidelines for proper medical documentation of battered patients.
In spite of these professional recommendations, most physicians are reluctant to routinely screen women for domestic violence, citing a lack of training in how to conduct screenings and insufficient knowledge of appropriate responses and referrals when a patient discloses domestic violence.
The first shelter for battered women and their children opened in London in 1972. There are currently more than 2,000 shelters in the United States. In most communities, shelters raise community funds for operation; in some communities, police contribute a portion of their budget to aid in shelter operation. Shelters often rely on volunteers and a few paid personnel to provide round-the-clock assistance to battered women and their families. Little is known about the number of repeat victims served annually, the length of average stays, or the effectiveness of shelter services in preventing subsequent violence.
Although there are confidentiality issues to resolve or respect, police should seek to exchange information with domestic violence victim service providers as much as possible to learn more about the domestic violence victim population, some of whom do not seek out police assistance. This information exchange can aid in identifying the highest risk victims and offenders, targeting prevention efforts, designing safety plans, and learning more about the community’s offenders.
† More than 60 U.S. law schools offer student advocacy services for domestic violence victims at court proceedings (Roberts, 2002b).
Recently emerging are family justice centers, which house domestic violence victim services in one location to increase victim survival, independence, and recovery. Formerly, victim services were scattered in different places, sometimes at opposite ends of cities. If victims followed up with these fragmented services, they too often experienced the frustration of retelling the story of violence to every individual provider.†
† The San Diego Family Justice Center provides victims with advocacy, childcare, clothing, counseling, court support, deaf/hard-of-hearing assistance, emergency housing, food, forensic documentation of injuries, housing for pets, internet access, law enforcement, legal assistance, locksmith services, medical services, military assistance, phones, phone cards, restraining orders, support groups, safety planning, spiritual support, transportation, and victim compensation (San Diego Family Justice Center).
You should supplement official records with the victim’s personal knowledge about the offender. Keep in mind that for a variety of social and psychological reasons, victims may be reluctant to reveal the extent of the battering, particularly to police.
Police may consider soliciting the assistance of trained medical professionals to help determine a victim’s abuse history. A study of one initiative in which a doctor and a nurse (or paramedic) accompanied police on domestic violence calls found victims revealing much more about the extent to which their partner battered them than police typically elicit, suggesting that victims may feel more comfortable reporting repeat victimization to medical professionals. Even with the high levels of repeat victimization uncovered, few victims had sought counseling, shelter, or medical treatment for the prior assaults.
There is great interest in developing an assessment instrument police can use to predict and help prevent domestic violence homicides. Although some such instruments exist, they tend to over-predict lethality. This is because only a very small portion of domestic violence victims are murdered and distinguishing between victims who will be murdered and those who will not remains elusive. For instance, even though offender unemployment is a risk factor, the vast majority of unemployed abusers do not murd