Abusive Policing Of Domestic Violence, Speaking Truth To Power

There has been a relentless rise in domestic violence over the last few decades. This coincides with men’s backlash against women who struggle for independence from men. Misogynism has become a mainstream ideology with believers inhabiting every social setting, protected by the systems they have created.

The most significant front in the war against women has become the home. The male perpetrators of domestic violence do not have the power to spread their ideology further than their own kitchens. But there is a male dominated cohort hiding in plain sight which has the numbers, understands the legalities, is embedded in every locality and who has unsupervised power to either end domestic violence or make it worse.Look no further than your local police station.

It is against this backdrop that the author’s daughter, Noni, struggled with her violent husband and with the police who were determined to criminalise her. And with this going on, she was being treated for terminal ovarian cancer while trying to recover after her husband burnt down her house,where she lost everything. His escalation to arson coincided with Noni’s lack of trust in the police and with the free hand the police gave to him.

Through her experiences with her daughter’s tragedy, the author has been able to examine in harrowing detailhow the same policing routine of misidentifying the victim as the perpetrator is used as a way of drawing women into the criminal process.This contradicts the police codes of how the front line police should behave. This is identifiable misogynism hidden behind faux legality. When faced with complaints about this, police executives do everything they can to shield the erring police from accountability. So the situation perpetuates itself and the police force is instrumental in the escalation and perpetuation of domestic violence.