Routledge Revivals
Women, Policing, and Male Violence
First published in 1989, this book focuses on the policing of male violence against women. It is an issue that has been criticised substantially in the past, and the book shows how even police themselves have sometimes admitted that women have received inadequate treatment . The book includes contributions from North America, Australia, and Western Europe and looks at different approaches that have been taken by states in intervening into the violence of men against women. Chapters explore the differences and similarities of policing practices in western societies at the time surrounding the books original publication.
First published in 1989
by Routledge
This edition first published in 2013 by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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1989 Routledge
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
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The publisher has gone to great lengths to ensure the quality of this reprint but points out that some imperfections in the original copies may be apparent.
Disclaimer
The publisher has made every effort to trace copyright holders and welcomes correspondence from those they have been unable to contact.
A Library of Congress record exists under ISBN: 88018501
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-82938-0 (hbk)
ISBN 13: 978-0-203-51477-1 (ebk)
First published 1989
by Routledge
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
29 West 35th Street, New York NY 10001
1989 Routledge
Printed in Great Britain by Billings & Sons Limited, Worcester.
Typeset by Pat and Anne Murphy, Highcliffe-on-Sea, Dorset
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Hanmer, Jalna
Women, policing, and male violence:
international perspectives
1. Women, violence; by men. Control
I. Title II. Radford, Jill III. Stanko, Elizabeth A.
(Elizabeth Anne), 1950
364.153
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hanmer, Jalna.
Women, policing, and male violence:
international perspectives/
Jalna Hanmer, Jill Radford,
Elizabeth A. Stanko.
p. cm.
Includes index.
I. Women Crimes against. 2. Sex discrimination
in criminal justice. 3. Victims of crime Government
policy. I. Radford, Jill, 1947 .
II. Stanko, Elizabeth Anne, 1950 . III. Title.
HV6250.4. W65H365 1989 88-18501 CIP
362.88088042dc 19
ISBN 0-415-00692-9
ISBN 0-415-00693-7 Pbk
Contents
Notes on the Contributors
Jalna Hanmer, Jill Radford, and Elizabeth A. Stanko
Jill Radford
Elizabeth A. Stanko
Suzanne E. Hatty
Jalna Hanmer
Olga J. Zoomer
Kathleen J. Ferraro
Jalna Hanmer, Jill Radford, and Elizabeth A. Stanko
While many women have engaged in the debates concerning particular forms of mens violence against women, few of our concerns have been taken on board in the wider academic and policy-making discussions about the nature and purpose of policing in general. This book arose from our dissatisfaction with the way policing is discussed in the wider criminological literature.
The process of articulating our concerns about policing has involved many others through the years. We would like to thank the many women who continue to keep these issues alive in their own communities by providing assistance to other women and by making demands for more effective policing. In particular, we would also like to acknowledge those who have read drafts of chapters: Pat Carlen, Cynthia Enloe, Jennifer Hunt, Peter Manning, Gloria Miraskind, Jean Osborne, Sheila Saunders, Phil Scraton, and Joanna Shapland. Many thanks to Pat Spallone for her help with the bibliography. We would also like to thank the women with whom we shared ideas about policing mens violence: Women Against Violence Against Women Groups; the Sexual Violence and the Law Group at Rights of Women; the staff of Daybreak refuge, Worcester, Massachusetts; Womens Aid groups in Britain and the Violence Against Women Study Group of the British Sociological Association.
Jalna Hanmer, Jill Radford, and Elizabeth A. Stanko
This book explores the police response to violence against women. It owes its origins to the reframing of questions about the violence of men against women that began in the late 1960s when the redefinition of the problem and the process of doing something about it began to move hand in hand. Fundamental questions raised then remain important today. How are womens experiences of violence from men to be interpreted? What services do women need? How does one particular service, the police, deal with womens needs? How are violent men to be controlled? In exploring these questions we rediscovered the history of nineteenth century womens campaigns to gain improvements for women abused by men. Two major ways in which demands for reform have surfaced in the past two centuries are the subject of this volume: the demand for women police and the demand that violence against women from men be treated as crime.
As with any text, this one is specifically located in particular cultures and historical situations. In different times and places women have used various words to describe their experiences of violence from men. Throughout this volume we use the words women fashioned to define and sub-classify their experiences rather than converting these to standardized terms which reflect our own understanding today. While the experiences these terms describe, like the words used to name them, differ from each other, through the process of naming women have voiced their anger and expressed their commitment to struggle and survival. Mens violence, sexual violence, rape, incest, sexual abuse of women and children, woman battering, womanslaughter, woman killing, frawen mishandling, the male peril, sexual terrorism, outrage, unspeakable horror, sexual harassment these are some of the words women in several cultures and at different times in this century have drawn upon to describe their experiences of mens violence.
As with naming experiences, women also use differing terms to encapsulate an explanation of why men are violent. Just as we reject any notion that man is inherently violent, we also reject any parallel beliefs that women are incapable of resisting mens violence. The contributors to this book describe the possibilities of womens resistance, illustrating how these are partly linked to womens positions within social structures, partly to the political consciousness and support networks that have developed among women, and partly to the decisions women make regarding how much of life to share with men. Resistance and fighting back are constant features of every womans life, but they take place in a social context of unequal power. The reluctance of the police and criminal justice system to restrain men who commit violence against women or define its perpetrators as criminal is an illustration of this.
