Presentación de la propuesta del método fractal y el diseño del modelo

The previous sections have demonstrated how particular discourses and practices produced a general police response that decriminalized domestic assaults in the absence of serious injury. In 1982 the Minister of Police, Ben Couch, said that around 85% of domestic disputes were resolved peacefully, indicating that most were still defined as non-criminal or non-police matters.156 This section identifies the social and material implications of police practices for women, some of which have already been demonstrated, to analyze how police, as agents of the state, undermined or supported

152 _{Interview with Graham Duncan, 14 May 2008.} 153 _Ibid.

154

Ibid.

155_{New Zealand Police College, ‘Domestic Disputes’, p.3, Committee on Violent Offending, 1977-}

1979, ABGX, 16127, W3706, box 84, pt 4, ANZ, Wellington.

156 _{Minister of Police, Press statement, March 1982, Domestic and Matrimonial Proceedings, 1981-}

structures that enabled men’s violence against wives and partners. While there was a general policy of decriminalization of men’s violence against wives and partners, individual women’s experiences might have varied substantially. Inconsistent police practices have been well documented, and also might have discouraged women calling on police.157

The 1961 Crimes Act gave clear direction that assaults producing injuries were crimes even if they occurred in the domestic sphere, and police acted accordingly in these situations. Killing was automatically a capital crime; and police made arrests and prosecuted in cases of serious injury that included being knocked unconsciousness, concussion, strangling, broken bones, broken noses, and serious lacerations.158 Police also prosecuted men when they witnessed serious violence, such as one man attacking his wife, punching her about the body, and another attempting to strangle his wife.159 At the other end of the spectrum there were no doubt petty quarrels in which the police did not have any business. But where the majority of domestic assaults lay was between these two extremes, in an area where legal discourses were ambiguous and police response discretionary.

In the first instance, the name “domestic disputes”, suggesting a non-violent argument

between equals, trivialized many women’s experiences and undermined their capacity

to claim victimhood. Alongside serious injuries, violence against wives and partners included kicking, slapping, bending arms behind backs, throwing hot tea, pulling hair, being knocked off chairs, having knives thrown at them, being shot at and having clothes torn, violent acts that did not easily support a successful prosecution. As a result of these assaults, some of the women lived in constant fear, were depressed, and functioned poorly as mothers.160

In contrast to police definitions of domestic assaults as often trivial, women’s

narratives in separation files indicate that women called police often as a last resort,

157 _{For example, BWSG to Chief Superintendent, Central Christchurch Police Station, 2 February 1982,}

Private Papers of Doris Church.

158_{‘Fight for Rifle’,}

Truth, 12 June 1973, p.9; separation files of the Christchurch District Court, CAHS, CH927, box 223, case 74, 1975 and box 223, case 61, 1975, ANZ, Christchurch.

159_{‘Attacked Wife in Front of Police’, Truth, 6 September 1966, p.6; ‘Liquor in Wife-beating’, Truth,}

13 September 1966, p.9.

160

after many months or years of being assaulted, and when they feared for their lives. Women did not call police after a quarrel; they called when they perceived a serious

threat to either their own or their children’s safety. Some women called only when the violence put their children at risk. Some women never called police.161 Police

response times are further evidence of the low priority accorded to domestic assaults. A 1984 survey reported that in 76% of complaints police arrived in 30 minutes, in 15% up to an hour, and in 9% of cases police did not arrive at all.162 These response times did not protect a woman who called in a crisis. As well, it meant a violent husband or partner had more time to calm down before police arrival, which supported a view of the event as non-criminal.

Police policy that aimed to restore the public peace provided poor protection of women. Cautioning husbands was often ineffective. Court reports related in Truth and the Press, and women’s narratives in separation files, indicate that it was not

uncommon for men to assault wives and partners after police had left the premises.163 Police twice warned one man against assaulting his wife before he was arrested that same night.164 One woman called police after her husband assaulted her daughter, but things did not improve so she left the home.165 Another woman said she called police several times, but her husband merely argued with them and no improvement

ensued.166Men’s violence and police inaction forced some women to leave town permanently for their safety.167 Police suspicion of complainants was well known and might have deterred some women from calling police. Because of this, in 1974 legal advice in Truth advised a woman to pursue civil proceedings rather than using police

to deal with her problem of ‘wife-beating’.168

While police judged women harshly for not pursuing complaints, material and social

obstacles to women leaving marriages meant that it was not always in women’s

161

Ibid.

162 _{Ford, p.56.}

163 _{As illustrated by Court Reports in Truth, 1960s-1970s.}

164_{‘Magistrate’s Court –Assault’, Press, 23 September 1975, p.7.} 165

Christchurch District Court Files, CAHS, CH927, box 2, case 36, 1970, ANZ, Christchurch.

166 _{Ibid., box 3, case 77, 1970, ANZ, Christchurch.}

167 _{BWSG to Chief Superintendent, Christchurch Central Police Station, 21 August 1978, Private}

Papers of Doris Church.

168_{Ask the Lawyer’,}

interest to do so.169 Court Registrar Robin O’Neill said that there was no way a woman was going to stand up in court and say what he had done, because if he went to jail she was not going to get any maintenance. For this reason women invariably withdrew complaints.170 Some women did not want their marriages to end - only to have the violence stop. Police responses effectively gave women the choice of either leaving a marriage (they had options under matrimonial law) or staying without the reinforcement of a police prosecution. This put women in an either/or position. It also put them in a catch 22 situation. Pursuing remedies under matrimonial law required evidence of the matrimonial offence of cruelty, which police prosecutions and convictions could provide.

Backed up by institutionalized discourses, the non-arrest policy was such that it could overpower legal discourses that did allow for an assault against a wife or partner to constitute an offence. In 1979 one woman called police after being assaulted, but police said they could do nothing about it because there were no marks. The woman thought there were, but that police just did not seem to want to know.171 Matrimonial court records show that serious violence could be viewed leniently. One husband threatened his wife with a rifle and fired. She later learnt it was blank. Police were called, but no charges were laid.172 After her husband threatened her with a knife, another woman ran to her father-in-law’s. Police removed the knife and gave it to the father-in-law. No charges followed.173 In a third incident, a wife barricaded herself in

her daughter’s room after her husband had threatened her with a knife. The daughter

slipped out the window and called police. Police talked to the husband and then left. In the morning he assaulted his wife and police were called, again cautioned him, and left.174

Alongside general practices of a decriminalization of domestic assaults were instances where individual police officers empowered women, thereby enabling women to

resist a husband’s or partner’s violence against them. In 1973 one woman said a

169 _{Obstacles to leaving marriages are discussed in Chapter 5.} 170_{Interview with Robin O’Neill, 15 May 2008.}

171

Home and Family Society (HFS) records, Dunedin branch, Client Case Files 1970-1985, AG 647- 165R, Hocken Library (HL), Dunedin.

172 _{Christchurch District Court Files, CAHS, CH927, box 7, case 174, 1970, ANZ, Christchurch.} 173 _{Ibid., box 8, case 182, 1970, ANZ, Christchurch.}

174

policeman’s sympathy enabled her to leave her husband for good. He made her realize

there were shoulders to cry on and organizations to provide financial help. He also made her see that she was really afraid of the idea of facing life as a solo parent.175 In

the early 1980s another woman reported that police ‘were mighty. They stayed for

quite a while and gave him the works. They told me to ring back straight away if

anything else happened.’176

The latter example might have been indication of the shift

in attitudes to men’s violence against wives and partners that was occurring in the

police force at this time, discussed in later chapters.