Assessing cross-national differences in police officers' domestic violence attitudes

• Pages: 469-482
• Date: 04 May 2020
• Published date: 04 May 2020
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/PIJPSM-12-2019-0197
• Author: Shannon Harper,Angela Gover,Samara McPhedran,Paul Mazerolle
• Subject Matter: Public policy & environmental management,Policing,Criminal justice,Juvenile/youth crime,Police studies,Health & social care,Criminology & forensic psychology,Criminology & criminal justice

Assessing cross-national

differences in police officers’

domestic violence attitudes

Shannon Harper

Department of Sociology, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, USA

Angela Gover

School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado Denver, Denver, Colorado, USA

Samara McPhedran

Griffith University, Queensland, Australia, and

Paul Mazerolle

Office of the President and Vice Chancellor, University of New Brunswick,

Fredericton, Canada

Abstract

Purpose –Comparative research provides a mechanism to understand how justice systems throughout the

world operate. McPhedran et al. (2017) conducted a comparative examination of police officer attitudes about

domestic violence (DV) in the USA and Australia and reported fairly high levels of agreement among male and

female officers within each country. The current study builds on these findings by examining officer attitudes

toward DV among male and female officers cross-nationally. This was accomplished by examining whether

American and Australian male and female officers agree with one another on a number of DV issues.

Design/methodology/approach –Two-way ANOVA was used to examine the effect of two factors (gender

and country) on law enforcement officer attitudes about DV.

Findings –The results suggest that male and female officers from the USA and Australia significantly differ

on 14 of 24 attitudes about DV with the greatest number of attitudinal differences found between American and

Australian male officers.

Research limitations/implications –Scholars who conduct future research examining police officer

attitudes about DV should use the instrument from this study as a springboard to develop an updated survey in

terms of content and one that would be applicable to cross-national analyses. Methodological study limitations

are described in depth in McPhedran et al. (2017).

Originality/value –Whilegender differences in attitudes have received scholarly attention, questions remain

regarding the degree to which attitudes align among male and female officers across different countries. The

current study seeks to fill these gaps in knowledge by examining attitudes about DV between American and

Australian law enforcement officers.

Keywords Domestic violence, Intimate partner violence, US law enforcement attitudes,

Australian law enforcement attitudes

Paper type Research paper

Introduction

Since Hoyle’s (1998) landmark study examining how external social conditions, culture and

organizational policies and procedures interact to guide the manner law enforcement officers

perform their work, there has been ongoing momentum for research about how police

officers’attitudes affect their decision-making. Decision-making in relation to domestic

violence (DV) has received scholarly attention in particular. DV involves physical, sexual and/

or emotional/psychological violence and/or stalking by an intimate partner and is a problem

of international concern affecting 35.6 percent of women and 28.5 percent of men in the USA

(i.e. lifetime prevalence of physical violence, rape and stalking; Black et al., 2011). About

25 percent of Australian women have experienced at least one DV incident (an assault or

Domestic

violence

attitudes

469

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at:

https://www.emerald.com/insight/1363-951X.htm

Received 23 December 2019

Revised 8 February 2020

Accepted 10 February 2020

Policing: An International Journal

Vol. 43 No. 3, 2020

pp. 469-482

© Emerald Publishing Limited

1363-951X

DOI 10.1108/PIJPSM-12-2019-0197