By Kerry Carrington, Máximo Sozzo, Vanessa Ryan

Our ARC funded research team has been investigating how to enhance the prevention and policing responses to gender-based violence. Initially we undertook three months of field research in Argentina investigating how Women’s Police Stations – a unique invention that emerged in Latin America in the mid-1980s – respond to and prevent gender-based violence (Carrington et al. 2019; 2020b). A brief summary of our findings is included in this report. The second stage of our research has investigated what could be learnt from these unique approaches to policing in Australia and elsewhere in the world. This report presents the findings of two surveys we designed to explore whether the innovative strategies used by women’s only police stations in Argentina could improve the way we respond to and prevent gender violence in Australia. The report is presented in four parts. The first part presents an overview of our project on gendered violence. Part II presents the findings from the Workforce survey (n=277), followed by Part III which presents the findings from the Community survey (n=566). The final part of the report compares the responses to two key questions asked of both cohorts. The first asked, “In your opinion, which aspects of Women's Police Stations (in Argentina) could improve how Australian police stations respond to victims of gender violence?”. There were 12 aspects provided, and respondents were able to choose more than one response. Overall, Workforce respondents were positive about 11 aspects, and nine strongly, varying between 41 and 86 percent, with only one below 50 percent (see Figure 12). Community respondents were less enthusiastic with levels of endorsement varying between 32 percent and 67 percent, with only three aspects below 50 percent (see Figure 24). Nevertheless, when compared (see Figure 32) there was a considerable level of agreement across the surveys to nine aspects: Work in multi-disciplinary teams with lawyers, counsellors and social workers; Collaborate with local agencies to prevent gender violence; Provide emergency support to victims of violence; Police Stations specifically designed to receive victims; Provide childcare and a space for children; Carry out violence prevention work in the local community; Specially designed interview rooms for victims; and Work with victims and offenders to break the cycle of violence.

Brisbane: Centre for Justice, Queensland University of Technology: Brisbane, 2020. 52p.

By Kerry Carringtona, Máximo Sozzob, Vanessa Ryanaand Jess Rodge

When domestic violence was criminalised in countries like Australia, United States and United Kingdom, many saw this as a victory, as the state taking responsibility for violence against women. The problem was that its policing was delegated to a masculinised police force ill-equipped to respond to survivors of gender violence. Latin America took a different pathway, establishing women-led police stations designed specifically to respond to the survivors of gender violence. Our research team looked for inspiration to reimagine the policing of gender violence in the twenty-first century from the victim-centred women-led police stations that emerged in Argentina in the 1980s. By emphasising a preventative over a punitive approach, multi-disciplinary teams of police, social workers, psychologists and lawyers offer survivors a gateway to support, instead of just funnelling them into the criminal justice system. Surveying gender violence sector workers and members of the general public, we sought views on the potential of adapting the protocols of these specialist police stations to Australia. We argue that if staffed by appropriately trained teams to work from both gender and culturally sensitive perspectives, women-led victim friendly police stations could side-step some of the unintended consequences of criminalisation, pathing the way for reimagining the policing of gender violence. Framed by southern criminology the project aims to redress the biases in the global hierarchy of knowledge, by reversing the notion that policy transfer can only flow from the countries of the Global North to the Global South.

POLICING AND SOCIETY2022, VOL. 32, NO. 5, 577–597

By Kerry Carrington, Máximo Sozzo, María Victoria Puyol, Marcela Parada Gamboa, Natacha Guala, and Diego Zysman

This is the first report of a study into the role of women’s police stations in Argentina in responding to and preventing gender violence. The study is funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC) and includes a multi-country team of researchers from Australia and Argentina. Violence against women and girls is a global policy issue with significant social, economic and personal consequences. A World Health Organization (2013) prevalence study found that 35 per cent of women in the world had experienced violence or sexual abuse by a partner or ex-partner, and that women who are murdered by a partner or ex-partner account for 38 per cent of all female homicides. However, the burden of violence against women and girls is distributed unequally, with rates of violence significantly higher in low to middle income countries of the Global South. Yet, the bulk of global research on gender violence is based on the experiences of urban communities in high-income English-speaking countries mainly from the Global North. Only 11 per cent of research on gender violence has been conducted in Africa and 7 per cent in South Asia (Arango et al. 2014, 19). This body of research also tends to promote policy interventions that are either unsustainable (such as specialised domestic violence courts) or mono-cultural (based on white women’s experiences) and consequently of little assistance in designing interventions to eliminate gender violence in culturally diverse, low income and post-conflict, post-colonial or neo-colonial contexts in the Global South (Carrington et al. 2019). It is in this context that women’s specialist police stations, which first emerged in Latin America over 30 years ago and have since grown exponentially in countries of the Global South, warrant serious consideration as a more effective method for responding to violence against women, than reliance on traditional models of policing.

Brisbane: School of Justice, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology:2019. 29p.

By Jackie Alexander and Sarah Charman

Under-representation of women in policing is a global phenomenon, with considerable commonality in barriers to career success and differential career experiences compared to men. Through a comparative analysis utilising unique survey and interview data with female and male senior police leaders in England and Wales, this paper considers whether cultural and structural barriers persist and how they are experienced by gender; examines the challenges encountered en route to senior rank; and con-siders how similarities or differences by gender impact upon careers. The findings are considered to have world-wide relevance, demonstrating that those officers achieving seniority tend to share similar career experiences whatever their gender, particularly at the highest ranks. Leadership styles emerge as homogenous with agentic traits and traditional styles persist-ing. Costs to achieving higher rank appear to differ by gender however, and access to senior rank is revealed as dependent upon engaging in traditional behaviours including a long-hours culture and ensuring family does not reduce work capacity, effectively promoting a ‘child-tax’ upon female policing leaders. It thus appears that a widespread and global tacit acceptance of policing as a male-dominated profession endures, impact-ing on female advancement compared to men.

Police Practice and Research . An International Journal, 2023.

By  Melissa Scaia, and Rhonda Martinson,

An assessment of the Minneapolis Police Department’s response to domestic violence identified practices that put survivor safety at risk and did not hold violent offenders accountable. In 2017, a study by the Police Conduct Oversight Commission on the police response to domestic violence (DV) cases in Minneapolis documented that police officers wrote reports or made arrests in only 20% of DV calls from 2014-2016. During that time, the Minneapolis Police Department (MPD) received over 43,000 DV-related calls. Concern about the findings from the Office of Police Conduct’s review 2017 report led the Office of Police Conduct Review (OPCR) to request that Global Rights for Women (GRW), in coordination with local advocacy agencies, conduct an assessment of MPD’s response to DV cases. With a length of experience in international work on violence against women as a human rights issue, the GRW team is keenly aware that domestic violence is the most common form of gender-based violence around the world. No country or community is free from this crisis, including Minneapolis. …

Minneapolis: Global Rights for Women , Minneapolis Domestic Violence Working Group,  2023. 140p.

By Tracy C. Krueger, Sean Robson, Kirsten M. Keller

A guiding tenet of community policing is that trust and mutual respect between law enforcement and communities will more effectively address long-standing and complex public safety issues. One strategy to help establish such confidence is for law enforcement to adequately represent the demographic characteristics of the community it serves. Working to achieve this strategy can be challenging, however, because not everyone will be aware of, qualified for, or interested in a law enforcement career. The Colorado State Patrol (CSP) seeks to better reflect the demographic representation of the state of Colorado. This report offers an exploratory examination of how CSP's recruiting and selection policies and procedures relate to that objective. By integrating a review of CSP documents, interviews with CSP experts, and research and industry best practices, the authors identified potential barriers to diversity in CSP's early career stages and provide recommendations to mitigate and remove these barriers. This work is meant to act as a preliminary road map to assist CSP's future efforts in diversifying the demographic representation of its workforce. Barriers to diversity include the composition of the current workforce, the nature of the job, relocation requirements, and the lengthy hiring process. Recommendations include assessing propensity to apply, determining why applicants drop out, adjusting application windows, exploring strategies to shorten background investigations, and providing a realistic job preview.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2019, 26p.