In France, some women who were estimate in great danger because of their previous companion/husband have been equipped with special telephones (« Great danger telephone ») that make the police get to your home as fast as they can.
Last month a woman activated one, the cops were there in 7 minutes, sadly too late [0].
So even if cops have a good formation, horrible things like that happens.
And we all know it’s hard to change mentalities. It will sadly still be a long road to prevent horror.
I’m in the US, and I do what I can to make sure women who feel that they are in danger are armed and trained.
“Trained” is an important part of that - both in preventing someone from harming them and enabling them to be confident in their ability to protect themselves.
I mention this not to start a flamewar on HN but to underscore that this is a very real problem that many people face and to urge people to help be part of mitigating it.
“In my case, police officers would make jokes while Smith was stalking me and making my life a misery,” she tells Broadly. “They’d say things like, ‘Why don’t you find yourself a nice boyfriend?'”
So are the British police underfunded, or just unwilling, to investigate abuse?
Note that uk crime statistics come in two forms: the crime survey (which are statistically sound) and police recorded crime (which are seen as unreliable). We've made some effort to get police to correctly record crime, but there's still a number of things where police will say "this is domestic, and not a police matter", or "this is civil, and not a police matter".
But why do they record crime incorrectly? If they were underfunded, being honest about the amount of crime in the UK would be a good case for giving them more money, right?
There may be other reasons, but trying to look like you’re doing a good job can be a conflict, as while higher crime rates might justify higher budgets in the future, they’d also lower the rate of solving and preventing crimes which are seen as metrics of police success.
Other than relying on 100% of police to be 100% ethical (and even without congnitive biases), which obviously isn’t ever going to be the case, third parties are probably always going to be necessary to improve accuracy.
Define "crime". Is all reported crime to be recorded as such? Police cannot take the word of everyone who reports, and often well-meaning people report things that are not in fact crimes. Police do not investigate all crimes witnessed or reported by the public. No force in the world has such resources. But they cannot honestly record alleged crimes as actual crimes, nor can we hold them responsible for counting all the crime that the public doesn't report to them. So it is normal for public surveys to be different than those from police reports.
I don’t mean for this to sound callous, but 49 people over 3 years seems like a fairly small number, and I can’t think of any realistic solution to this that wouldn’t involve stripping someone of their rights based solely on the fact that they were ‘reported to the police’.
Based on previous recorded homicide rates in the U.K. [1], 49 women over three years equates to about 10% of homicides committed against women. As a proportion, that does not seem such a small number to me.
No-one is asking for people to be stripped of their rights based on a single report to police.
They're asking for better enforcement of non-contact orders (which are granted by judges, in court), especially in cases where the person already has a conviction for violence.
49 is a small number, but these are all preventable deaths and they're all a result of a system that fails to protect victims of domestic violence.
Reported to the police for a crime. Stalking and threatening someone is a crime. All the police need to do is actually follow up and charge people who commit crimes and get reported to them, which is not exactly stripping people of their rights.
> Reported to the police for a crime. Stalking and threatening someone is a crime.
Outsider Question: Does the UK operate on presumed guilt or presumed innocence?
If the latter, what options do the police have? In the US, although state-by-state, we have options ranging from "The accused automatically is arrested / sent before a judge" to "temporary restraining order, and at least one party must vacate the premises" to "nothing."
Last month a woman activated one, the cops were there in 7 minutes, sadly too late [0].
So even if cops have a good formation, horrible things like that happens.
And we all know it’s hard to change mentalities. It will sadly still be a long road to prevent horror.
[0] https://mobile.francetvinfo.fr/societe/violences-faites-aux-... (in french)