Efficacy of Police Warnings in Case of Intimate Partner Stalking and Victims' Perception

• In Event: The Intersection between Policing and Victimization

Abstract

Policing in stalking cases face multiple problems: risk of escalation, reluctance of the victim to report, minimization of impact of stalking, lack of police skills in non-specialized trained units increasing risk of secondary victimisation.
Dedicated types of protective orders (POs) such as warning measures are administrative preventive measures police can apply in stalking cases. Victims’ perspectives on the efficacy and usefulness of these POs and the relationship between their use and the way victims report their experience with the police has been rarely investigated. The current study, conducted with 130 Italian victims of intimate partner stalking who applied for - and obtained from the police - a police warning measure for the stalker, aimed at looking at the efficacy of POs based on victims’ perspective. Results indicate that compared to the official police statistics on recidivism rates in stalking, the proportion of breaching orders reported by the victims is higher than official data: 50% of victims report after one year they were still stalked. Victims report an overall positive experience with the police and results show a significant relationship between positive experience with the police and perceived efficacy of police work. Results are discussed for purposes of improving training programmes.

Authors

• Anna Costanza Baldry, Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli

• Vincenza Cinquegrana, Università degli Studi della Campania Luigi Vanvitelli

• Vittorio Rizzi, Direzione Centrale Anticrimine, Ministero dell'Interno