Why domestic violence victims often feel retraumatized by police

Badly injured, Marie-France (a pseudonym) sought shelter at her father’s house, wanting to buy time, let her wounds heal and figure out how she and her children could quietly slip away from her abuser.

Her father believed the police would help. But Marie-France feared police involvement would give her less control over an already chaotic situation.

After what she describes as hours of “badgering and threatening” by police, she agreed to allow photographs of her injured body and a three-hour sworn video statement.

Afterwards, police told Marie-France she no longer had a role to play in the prosecution of her own abuse. They explained out of concern for Marie-France’s well-being and to protect her from retraumatization, they had assembled evidence that would speak for Marie-France in her stead.

In effect, they created a second victim out of bits of evidence and this victim was guaranteed to be more compliant and less volatile than Marie-France herself. She asked the police what would happen if she changed her mind and wanted to withdraw the complaint. The police, confirming her worst fears, told her that was not possible.

“Your evidence is all we need,” Marie-France says she was told. “We have a version of you who can speak in court. The real you won’t be needed.”

RETRAUMATIZED

I have collected 50 stories from women whose abuse at the hands of their intimate partners was investigated by police. My preliminary research has found their stories are similar to Marie-France’s. Once the cops got involved, many women quickly wished they weren’t.

Survivors talked of moving from one abusive, controlling relationship to another. They learned to fear the state more than their abusers because ultimately the state could do worse than what their partners did.

State involvement in survivors’ lives can threaten everything from housing to relationships with children to immigration and employment status. For abused women, the state’s protection can be dangerous.

In Marie-France’s case, the police warned her she could be charged with perjury and obstructing justice if she tried to recant or change her story. They also reminded her Children’s Aid Society did not look kindly on women who tried to protect their abusers, which she regarded as a veiled threat.

Marie-France told me her loss of control over her own story, images of her own body and her own words through the course of the investigation left her feeling silenced, powerless, and totally removed from her own victimization.

THREATENED BY POLICE

Staci (a pseudonym) recalls the police busting into her apartment after hearing a disturbance. She was being assaulted by her boyfriend. Staci refused to co-operate with previous attempts at police intervention. This time, the police told her they were going to get their evidence “one way or another.”

Staci described police intimidation, including yelling, and shaking. She was told she would not have a moment’s peace until she gave up the evidence. When Staci refused, the police arrested her for assaulting her partner and resisting arrest.

Hours later, at the police station with no food, no water, no washroom and no rest, Staci was told the handcuffs would be removed if she was a “good girl” and did as investigators instructed her. Staci felt she had no choice but to give a statement.

“They basically had a gun to my head off camera,” she said.

When Staci returned to the police station a few days later to recant her statement, she was tacitly advised that attempts to have the statement thrown out on the grounds of duress might result in her being charged with perjury and obstructing justice. It was suggested she might be ultimately remanded to custody and could lose her children to the foster system.

HESITANT TO CO-OPERATE

Domestic violence victims are notoriously hesitant to cooperate with police for good reason. Stories like Staci’s and Marie-France’s are not uncommon, according to my initial research.

Some of the women I interviewed have had parental rights severed on the grounds of “failure to protect” by exposing a child to violence.

Other participants have been incarcerated because they defended themselves or took active measures to protect themselves, in some cases killing their abusers, because experience already taught them that the system would never protect them. This is especially true for Indigenous, poor, racialized or substanceusing women, as well as sextrade workers, who are all too often seen as victims deserving violence and undeserving of protection or care.

EMPTY PROMISES

The women in my research felt the state’s so-called remedies reinvent the same dynamics of interpersonal violence that work to take power away from them.

Once the replica victim is created through evidence collection, she cannot be silenced or destroyed.

Unlike a flesh-and-blood victim who can fail to appear or co-operate, who can recant or lie in court, the virtual victim is quiet and compliant. Her wounds never heal. The state possesses all the necessary tools to wrench control and take power away from the exact people it claims to want to protect.

Until this phenomenon is addressed, women will remain as fearful of police as they are their abusers.