TESTIMONY OF
LESLYE E. ORLOFF
DIRECTOR,
IMMIGRANT WOMEN PROGRAM
NOW LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATION FUND
BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON IMMIGRATION, BORDER SECURITY AND CLAIMS OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
DANGERS THAT LOCAL POLICE REPORTING CAN CAUSE FOR
IMMIGRANT VICTIMS OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
FEBRUARY 27, 2003
Leslye E. Orloff
Director, Immigrant Women Program
NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund
1522 K Street, N.W. Suite 550
Washington, D.C. 20005
(202) 326-0040
(202) 589-0511 fax
iwp@nowldef.org
Safety Implications of Police Response to Calls for Help From Battered Immigrants
I. Introduction
Domestic violence does not occur at a higher frequency within one socio-economic class, racial group, or geographic area. 2 However, some victims of domestic violence are at a greater risk of longer exposure to and greater impact from domestic violence because of their lack of access to culturally responsive services from the community in which they live.3 Immigrant women who encounter language barriers, cultural differences, and stereotyping by mainstream society are often invisible to the anti-domestic violence movement.4 The pervasive lack of understanding of the life experiences of battered immigrant women by the systems designed to protect battered women and immigrant victims' greatly reduces the likelihood that immigrant victims will be able to escape the violence in their lives.5 While there have been some attempts to remove the barriers that battered immigrant women face, these attempts have not been completely successful. This is partially attributed to the lack of responsiveness and culturally appropriate treatment battered immigrant women experience when interacting with the police.
There are many strategies battered women use to escape, avoid and stop intimate violence. Some strategies are informal, (e.g. speaking with friends), while others are formal, (e.g. seeking help from government or social services agencies). However, when a woman realizes that her partner's abuse will not stop without outside intervention and she needs to take decisive actions, calling the police can be one of her first formal responses. Indeed, appropriate police intervention has been found to have a significant impact in lowering the rate of subsequent domestic violence.6 However, scholars have found that police have not always fulfilled their protective role due to prejudice, call screening, gender bias, language barriers, and lack of culturally competent training and understanding about the life experiences of immigrant communities and domestic violence victims.
At the same time, many immigrants have a strong distrust of the police due to negative perceptions or experiences with police in their countries of origin7 and experiences of racism and prejudice with the police in the United States.8 When this lack of trust is combined with fears including arrest, deportation9 and retribution from their abusers,10 it becomes clear why many battered immigrant women hesitate to contact the police to report abuse. These life experiences of battered immigrants require that police officers be more aware of the intersection of culture, law, gender, language barriers and victimization in handling domestic violence in immigrant families
The call for change in police relationships with immigrants who experience domestic violence is particularly important in light of the changing immigrant demographics in the U.S. The rate of immigrants entering the United States has tripled over the past generation, and the 1990s witnessed the largest influx of immigrants to date.11 The immigrant population now extends beyond people who are foreign born to include the children of these families. In the year 2000, 20% of school-aged children had immigrant parents,12 and it is estimated that by the year 2040, 27% of the U.S. population will be immigrants or the children of immigrants.13
It is critical to realize that the sheer increase in the number of persons immigrating to the United States means that geographic areas of the U.S. which typically have not had significant immigrant populations are now being called upon to respond to the needs of diverse populations of immigrants and refugees who are new arrivals in the United States. While the majority of immigrants live14 in the West and the South , immigrants now have an increasingly significant presence in the Northeast and Midwest. This influx of immigrants is also affecting rural areas in which greater numbers of immigrant families are settling in communities that have not historically been home to immigrant populations. As the immigrant population becomes an increasingly dominant portion of American society, it is critical that police officers learn to work with all types of battered immigrant and refugee populations in order to effectively help them counter, reduce and hopefully bring an end to the domestic violence they experience.
II. Overview of Police Interactions With Minority Communities
The historic record of policing in minority communities in the U.S. leaves a lot to be desired... As the U.S. population becomes increasingly diverse, 18 the need for adequate police training in effectively addressing issues that affect minority populations becomes more important. Due to issues such as lack of language capacity, training, understanding, and cultural competency reports of police violence and discrimination against and indifference towards the safety of minorities have increased.
A. Police Interactions With Immigrant Populations
Issues of race, class, and ethnicity have always been at the forefront of discussions about the criminal justice system.19 All branches of the United States government-judicial, legislative, and executive-have a history of racism.20 This history of racial prejudice within the executive branch is often exemplified through the actions of police officers. The history of racism against African-Americans is clear from Jim Crow laws, segregation, and racial profiling.21 Discriminatory practices by police officers have also extended to various immigrant populations who are too often viewed by police as persons not legally residing in the United States and suffering from a cultural lag. These assumptions, combined with the fact that newer immigrants are often living in poverty, have fostered the image that immigrants pose a problem and a danger to U.S. societal fabric.22
The relationship between police officers and immigrant populations is one that has been strained for a variety of reasons. Unguided and untrained police action against immigrant populations has often resulted in the violation of the rights of citizens, lawful residents, and other noncitizens.23 Some of the most brutal acts of violence and police brutality have occurred against immigrants.24 However, overt physical violence has not been the only negative response by police in their interactions with immigrant populations. There have been a number of cases where police officers, because of their own prejudices or simple lack of knowledge, have arrested, harassed and accused immigrants of various crimes and threatened them with deportation.25
Police officers use discretion in deciding to arrest. This discretion often turns into selective law enforcement, and encompasses the use of coercive force and/or verbal threats when they come into contact with immigrants.26 An officer's perception of a person's race, ethnicity, and social class can (and often does) determine what legal enforcement measures will be used in any given instance.27 These perceptions may be based on personal experience and/or stereotypes that an individual police officer has with regard to a particular ethnic group.28
These same problems of perception and stereotyping that affect and strain the relationship between immigrants and police officers also affect and strain the relationship between police officers and victims of domestic violence. Researchers have found that the patriarchal occupational subculture of police officers or departments often leads to individual attitudes which tend to blame the victim, project blame on other institutions, and foster negative images of women as manipulative individuals.29 This does not mean, however, that these perceptions cannot be changed through adequate training and education, adequate access to interpreters and the development and implementation of appropriate policies.
The dire need for culturally appropriate law enforcement training has become more evident in the aftermath of the September 11th 2001 tragedy. The sudden thrust of law enforcement into the day to day realities of diverse cultural groups living in the U.S. has more than revealed how antiquated police training and police department polices for intervening in domestic violence cases of immigrant victims are. When stereotyping, culturally insensitive, xenophobic and gender biased attitudes persist among police officers and are unmitigated by appropriate training and continuing education the daily ordeals battered immigrant women endure when contacting law enforcement for service are exacerbated.
B. Police Interactions With Victims of Domestic Violence
Historically domestic violence has been viewed as a private problem.30 This view has gradually begun to change with activism and some legislation, but the change in perspective has been slow in coming. Police intervention in domestic violence cases has historically been minimal in some instances because of this perception.31 The tools used by law enforcement to protect victims were not often used effectively due to the police outlook on domestic violence as a private matter.. Protection orders have not always been treated seriously and a tendency to arrest victims has been related to police finding violent acts by the perpetrators justifiable.32 The response to this lack of attention eventually led to the development of mandatory and pro-arrest policies that take away the discretion and power from police officers in deciding whether or not to arrest the batterer. 33 Much emphasis has been placed on mandatory arrest as a primary form of police intervention in domestic violence cases, but this singular focus can prove to be detrimental to battered women whose life experiences are determined by issues of race, class, ethnicity, and immigration status.34
Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) passed by Congress in 1994 and improved in 2000, sought among many goals to reform the manner in which law enforcement officers intervened in domestic violence cases. VAWA provided funding, technical assistance, development of model training programs and support for police department units that specialized in appropriate response to domestic violence calls for help. Overall, although there has been significant improvement in police response to domestic violence in some communities following the passage of VAWA, police response to domestic violence in many communities continues to be lacking. The personal attitudes of some police officers about what domestic violence is (a private problem) and how it should be handled (through mediation rather than arrest or formal charges) has the effect of marginalizing victims of domestic violence and even disregarding their requests for help.35 These problems of lack of appropriate response from the police and police department policies to domestic violence are further compounded when the battered woman is an immigrant. This can occur because the police do not have the capacity to communicate effectively with the immigrant victim in her own language, the police may use her abuser or her children to translate for her, and/or police may credit the statements of her citizen spouse or boyfriend over her statements to the police due to gender, race or cultural bias.
C. Police Interaction With Battered Immigrant Women
Battered immigrant women, especially those of color, face multiple barriers when trying to access services to aid their escape from violent relationships or try to stop the abuse.36 The treatment of immigrants by police in general influences whether battered immigrant women will trust the police and call for help.37 The interaction between police officers and immigrants has been a tenuous one in which immigrants have been arrested and threatened with deportation for minor criminal violations based largely upon the fact that they are immigrants. Domestic violence, especially when perpetrated upon a person of the same race or ethnicity as the batterer, is not perceived as unusual within the immigrant communities by law enforcement officials.38 Violence is often viewed by officers as being a part of the immigrant culture and the lives of immigrant women, leading some police officers to conclude that domestic violence is not a crime when the victim is an immigrant. 39 Other times, they may misperceive the victim's hesitancy to get involved with the legal system as a sign that she may not follow through on the prosecution of the criminal case. In light of these problems and practices, it is not surprising that anecdotal evidence from advocates working with immigrant victims of domestic violence reports that the number of arrests for domestic violence within immigrant communities is relatively low.
Battered immigrant women's lack of trust in the system and its officers intersects with many other fears: fear of deportation,40 fear of retribution by their abusers, fear of being the one arrested and separated from her children, and fear of future economic, social and/or employability repercussions. These issues preclude many battered immigrant women from requesting the help they need to counter the domestic violence they are experiencing in their lives.41 These barriers become even more pronounced when the batterer is a U.S. citizen and the victim is a non-citizen.43 Police officers are more likely to believe the citizen batterer when he contradicts the battered immigrant woman's accusations of violence. In many instances the fact that battered immigrant women have no legal immigration status or documentation in the U.S. is a result of the batterer's use of her immigration status as a weapon of abuse.44
In certain instances the police in effect act as the gatekeepers to the judicial system. Their discretion is the determining factor in deciding whether immigrant women victim's will gain access to the system and be able to find protection from the violence perpetrated against them in their homes. In many cases, unfortunately, the most difficult hurdle for battered immigrant women is that of police indifference and inaction.45 This inaction can act as an almost impassible barrier for many battered immigrant women to overcome, leaving them trapped and without any legal remedies.
Research Findings on Immigrant Victims of Domestic Violence and Police
To better understand the barriers immigrant women face that prevent them from calling the police for help and how immigrant victims are treated by police when they call a data collected in a survey conducted among Latina immigrant women conducted in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area was analyzed.
Domestic Violence Definition Used in the Research
Three separate abuse measures were used in the study - physical, sexual, and psychological. In addition, the researchers constructed a violence measure ("domestic violence offense") to examine those forms of abuse that as a matter of law constitutes domestic violence under the criminal and protection order laws of all states. In addition, we constructed a similar category to identify those acts of violence that constitute a "child abuse offense." The types of acts that were included in the categories of "domestic violence offense" against an adult victim or a "child abuse offense" against a child victim included: assaults (hit, pushed, scratched, pulled hair, with fist, kicked, choked, bit, burned); weapons (attacked, hit, threatened or shot with a gun, knife, machete or other weapon); kidnapping (locked victim or her children in the house or a room); sexual assault (rape, sexual assault, assault during pregnancy, incest, forced sexual relations, child sexual assault), criminal threats (threats to kill, bodily harm, harm victim, her children or her family members); and attempted assaults (drove a car at the victim or her children, tried to run over the victim or her children, drove in a manner that endangered her or her children, threw objects at her or her children).
Visible physical injury. A visible physical injury scale included cuts, visible bruises, and other wounds and injuries that made it visibly difficult for the victim to move. If such injuries are present, an arrest should occur as a matter of law because such injuries provide evidence of a domestic violence offense.
Other evidence. An "other evidence" measure was constructed which included torn clothing, property in disarray, police witnessing victim abuse and police hearing threats. An "other evidence" score refers to the number of other types of evidence present that the victims reported to be at the scene when the police arrived.
Crime scene evidence. A crime scene evidence variable was constructed as a total score representing visible physical injury and other evidence since both types constitute viable evidence in a crime scene investigation.
Immigration status. Immigration status was divided into three categories: stable, temporary and undocumented. The "stable" immigration status category contained citizens, naturalized citizens and lawful permanent residents. The "undocumented" category consisted of persons without legal permission to be in the United States either because they had entered without inspection or because they had entered lawfully and had overstayed or violated the terms of their visa. The "temporary" immigration status category included cases where the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) was aware of the presence of the immigrant and the immigrant had legal permission from the INS to live and, in most cases, work in the United States. However, persons in this immigration category had forms of immigration status that were not permanent. The status was limited as to length of time, was dependant upon a specific familial or employment relationship or was designed to offer temporary relief to persons due to conditions in their home country.
Survey Results
Demographics
The sample consisted of 230 immigrant women who had experienced violence or abuse from a past or current intimate partner. Half of respondents were between the ages of 30 and 41 years (50.9%, n = 86), with 40.8% (n = 89) under 30 years and only 9.2% (n = 20) 42 years or older.47 Half of the women reported not being involved in a current intimate relationship at the time of the survey (50.0%, n = 109). Most of the participants were employed (64.2%, n = 138) either full or part-time, the majority of whom (60.7%, n = 68) reported an average annual income below $9,000. In addition, more than three-quarters of the women had very little or no English speaking skills (75.6%, n = 169) and 20% (n = 45) reported very little or no Spanish reading literacy.
The immigration status of the respondents in the sample was primarily undocumented (44.4%, n = 95) but also included temporary (28.5%, n = 61) and stable (27.1%, n = 58) status categories. The immigration status of respondents' spouses included a greater proportion of stable (40.7%, n = 59) compared to respondents and somewhat fewer undocumented (39.3%, n = 47) and temporary (20%, n = 29).
Calls to Police
Of the sample, 27.0% (n = 53) indicated that at some point while in the United States they had called police for assistance due to violence or abuse from an intimate partner. Among these callers, the number of calls made ranged from 1 to 10. Of those who called, nearly an equal number of respondents reported they had called the police once (27.3%, n = 12), twice (22.7%, n = 10), three times (22.7%, n = 10), and more than three times (27.2%, n = 12).
Factors Related to Battered Women's Calls to Police
Demographics
Overall, 65.1% (n = 125) of the respondents reported living in the United States for three or more years. These women were more likely to call the police than women who had been in the U.S for less time (32.8% vs. 16.4%, c2 = 5.93, df = 1, 192, p < .01). Overall, 47.2% (n = 91) of the women reported current involvement in an intimate relationship. These women were less likely to call police than women who were currently not in an intimate relationship (20.9% vs. 33.3%, c2 = 3.74, df = 1, 193, p < .05).
Battered women who had a stable immigration status were more likely to call police (43.1%) than those with either a temporary status (20.8%) or who were undocumented (18.8%) (c2 = 10.7, df = 2, 184, p < .01). There was no significant effect on women's calls to police depending on the immigration status of their spouse, their intimate partner or the father of respondents' children on women's calls to police. Variables found not to be related to immigrant women respondents' calling the police included respondents' education, income, English language ability, Spanish language ability, current employment, and whether the spouse had presented immigration papers for the respondent.
Violence-Related Variables
Overall, 84.1% (n = 190) of the immigrant women respondents reported abuse that involved physical and/or sexual violence. The remaining 15.9% (n = 36) of women reporting abuse reported experiencing events that constitute psychological abuse only. As expected, the type of violence that women experienced was related to whether or not they called police. Women who were physically and/or sexually abused were more likely to call police than women who reported psychological abuse only (31.5% vs. 5.9%, c2 = 9.34, df = 1, 196, p < .01). Overall, 12% (n = 22) of the sample had been abused by more than one intimate partner, however there was no difference in the proportion of multiply abused women who called police compared to women who had been abused by one partner only.
Violent acts were coded based on whether or not they involved severe physical abuse,48 defined as being hit, punched, kicked, attacked with a knife, choked, bitten, or hit with an object. In this study, 66.9% (n = 71) overall reported experiencing severe violence. Those who experienced severe physical abuse also reported calling police more often than those who did not (29.7% vs. 4.0%, c2 = 13.23, df = 1, 151, p < .001). Interestingly, 93.8% of those who called police had been severely abused even though severely abused women account for only 66.9% of the immigrant women respondents in the survey... Violent acts were also coded according to whether or not they would constitute a domestic violence offense in most jurisdictions. Overall, the 81.1% (159) of women who reported experiencing domestic violence that would constitute a domestic violence offense were more likely to call police than those who did not (32.7% vs. 2.7%, c2 = 13.69, df = 1, 196, p < .001). Again, 98.1% (n = 52) of all women who called the police had experienced a domestic violence offense, even though this sample included only 81.1% (n = 159) of women with domestic violence offenses overall.
Two additional variables were examined only among those women who called the police. Overall, 59.6% (n = 21) reported some form of visible physical injury at the time they called police. Specifically, 51.9% (n = 21) reported having bruises, 13.7% (n = 7) having cuts, 11.5% (n = 6) having wounds, and 7.7% (n = 4) having wounds that made it difficult to move. Those who reported some form of physical injury also reported calling police more often than those women who reported no physical injury (68.9% vs. 0%, c2 = 11.94, df = 1, 52, p < .001). Thus, 100% of calls to police were from women who were injured, even though injured women comprised only 81.5% of the overall sample. Further, women who reported being injured by domestic violence sometime in the past (overall, 79.9%, n = 147) were more likely to call police than women who reported never having been injured in the past (32.7% vs. 13.5%, c2 = 5.28, df = 1, 184, p < .05).
The extent to which other types of evidence were present was also studied only among women who called the police. In 51.1% (n = 23) of the cases in which women called police, evidence other than physical injury was present at the scene when the police arrived such as torn clothing, property in disarray, or police witnessed violence or threats. For all cases reported to police was present at the crime scene some other type of evidence, 34.8% (n = 8) reported more than one other type. Combining both injury and other types of evidence described above, 68.9% (n = 31) of the respondents reported at least one of these types of crime scene evidence. Of those reporting some type of crime scene evidence, 19.3% (n = 6) reported more than one type.
Respondents were asked about the amount of time that generally passed between abusive incidents. Overall, more than a third of the respondents 35.4%, (n = 70) reported abuse experiences every one to two days, 27.3% (n = 54) every 3 days to one week, 20.7% (n = 41) weekly to monthly, and 16.7% (n = 33) less often than once a month.
Those in the sample who reported experiencing abusive incidents every one to two days called police more often (33.3%, n = 20) than those who experienced violence between three days and one week (10.9%, n = 5), but not significantly more often than those who experienced violence every one week and one month (31.4%, n = 11) or more often than one month (37.9%, n = 11; c2 = 9.23, df = 3, 170, p < .05).
Overall, 29.1% (n = 52) reported that their children had witnessed the domestic violence. Mothers whose children had witnessed violence reported calling the police more often than mothers whose children had not witnessed the violence (63.5% vs. 37.8%, c2 = 9.81, df = 1, 179, p < .001). Overall, 22.8% (n = 22) reported that a child had never experienced abuse sufficient to constitute a criminal offense. However, respondents called the police due to intimate partner violence at similar rates whether or not child abuse was also present.
Social Support
Overall, 90.7% (n = 135) of respondents had talked to more than one person about their experience with domestic violence. Talking with more than one person was associated with a greater likelihood of calling police (31.9% vs. 0%, c2 = 5.40, df = 1, 147, p < .01). All (100%) of the women who called the police for help had spoken to someone else about the abuse prior to making any call to the police. Interestingly, however, while most women reported a "supportive" (87.1%, n= 115) vs. a "negative" (12.9%, n = 17) response from those with whom they talked, the type of response was not associated with the calling of police (33.3% and 33.6% for negative and supportive response, respectively).
Police Response
Among women who called police, 54.4% (n = 25) reported that police responded within fifteen minutes. Other response times were between 16-30 minutes (26.1%, n = 12), 31-60 minutes (6.5%, n = 3), and an hour or more (14%, n = 6). Upon arrival, in nearly one-third of all cases (31.1%, n=14) police never spoke to the woman, speaking instead to the abusive partner (11%, n = 5) or to others (20%, n = 9). About a third (34%, n = 16) of the women reported that Spanish was spoken when police arrived. Finally, a little over a quarter (28.6%, n = 16) of police calls resulted in the arrest of the abusive partner.
Factors Related to Arrest
The only variable related to whether police made an arrest was whether the battered woman had a protection order at the time of the call. Nearly one-third of respondents in the study, 32.7% (n = 17), reported having a protection order in effect when they called police. Police were more likely to make an arrest when the victims reported having a protection order (50% vs. 20.7%, c2 = 4.13, df = 1, 45, p < .05).
The crime scene evidence score (0 - 4), calculated as a sum of items in the crime scene evidence variable, showed no difference in cases in which arrest was vs. was not made. Nearly everyone who called police had experienced at least one form of violence that would constitute a criminal offense. Among those who experienced a form of violence that would legally constitute a criminal offence, police made an arrest only 29.6% (n = 16) of the time. Additionally, neither the respondents' nor the perpetrators' immigration status nor the respondent's English language ability were related to whether or not police made an arrest.
Discussion
A. Factors That Influence Battered Immigrant Women's Contact With the Police
Of all the battered immigrants surveyed, only 27% were willing to call the police for help in a domestic violence incident. Among those women that were physically and/or sexually abused as opposed to emotionally abused, 31.5% reported calling the police for help. Both of these reporting rates are much lower than reporting rates found by several national studies for domestic violence victims. A 1998 Department of Justice study reported that 53% of domestic violence victims report the abuse to the police54 and a survey of shelter residents found that 58% of the victims reported the violence.55 The results of this study provide insight into what might be some of the reasons for this discrepancy in reporting rates. The difference most likely results from the roles that acculturation, having children who witnessed abuse and fear of deportation play for battered immigrants.
1. Acculturation
Acculturation is a process in which new immigrants begin to adapt to their new country.56 The longer immigrants reside in the United States following immigration, the more accustomed to and knowledgeable about U.S. customs, laws and systems they become. This survey found in fact that the longer battered immigrants lived in the United States the more likely they were to try to access U.S. based systems of protection. Battered Latina immigrants surveyed who had been residing in the United States for more than three years were twice as likely to call the police for help during a domestic violence incident than were those who had been living in the U.S. for less than three years (32.8% vs. 16.4%). This significant gap in reporting suggests that acculturation may play an important role56.
Many immigrant women immigrate to the United States from countries in which the courts and police took made no efforts to offer protection to domestic violence victims. Despite this fact and despite the fact that many experience isolation power and control tactics, the longer immigrant women reside in the United States following immigration, they become more accustomed to and knowledgeable about U.S. customs, laws and justice and social services systems. It seems that, with time, immigrant battered women are able to develop more trust in the new system and a better understanding of their rights.
An important clue as to how some of this important acquiring of information and acculturation takes place appears to be from immigrant women talking to and sharing information with each other. Battered immigrant women in the current study who had talked with more than one person about the violence were significantly more likely to call the police during a domestic violence incident (31.9% vs. 0.0%). Battered immigrants who had spoken to no one about the abuse or who had only spoken to one person did not call the police for help even though they had suffered injuries in a domestic violence incident. This finding suggests that battered women tend to rely first on informal help-seeking strategies before moving to formal strategies such calling the police.
2. The Victim's Fear that She Will Be Deported
Most importantly, the results of this survey suggests that a battered immigrant victim's immigration status made a significant difference in whether or not an immigrant domestic violence victim would call the police for help. In this study, battered immigrants with stable permanent immigration status were significantly more likely to call the police for help in a domestic violence case than other battered immigrant women (43.1 %) This reporting rate dropped to 20.8% for battered immigrants who were in the United States legally but on temporary non-immigrant visas, and further dropped to 18.8% if the battered immigrant was undocumented. These reporting rates are significantly lower than reporting rates of battered women generally in the United States, which range between 53%63 and 58%64.
Fear of being reported to the INS and of subsequent deportation is one of the most significant factors preventing immigrant victims of domestic violence from seeking help from legal and social service systems.50 In many instances U.S. immigration law formally ties the legal immigration status of an immigrant wife to the citizenship status of legal immigration status of her spouse. Abusers of immigrant domestic violence victims actively use their power to control their wife's and children's immigration status together with fears about and threats of deportation as tools to keep their abused spouses and children from seeking help or from calling police to report the abuse.51
It is important to keep in mind that many battered immigrant women come from countries in which the police, the courts and the justice system can not be relied upon to protect battered women. In some instances the country has no laws that make domestic violence a crime or that offer protection to domestic violence victims. In other instances a law exist, but it is not enforced particularly against abusers who are politically connected, have served in the military or the police force or who have sufficient economic means to avoid being held accountable. Additionally, much of the information an immigrant woman has about the U.S. legal system may come from her abuser. Without access to information about U.S. justice and social service system interventions that can offer her protection and can hold her abuser accountable for his crimes, the abuser's immigration related abuse can be very effective in keeping immigrant victims from seeking help, including calling the police.
3. Effect of Protection Orders
Of the battered immigrants in the survey who called the police for help, 37% had already obtained a protection order. This is encouraging as it may show that once battered immigrants have begun to take steps to protect themselves they are willing to take additional steps to help ensure protection for themselves and their children. This finding provides another reason why battered immigrants should be encouraged by advocates, attorneys and justice system personnel to obtain protection orders in domestic violence cases. It also underscores how important it is that protection orders and family courts are open to all persons who are victims domestic violence crimes committed in a state and/or who reside in a state without regard to the protection order applicant's immigration status.
B. Police Response to Calls from Immigrant Victims
Police Did Not Treat Calls For Help From Battered Immigrants Seriously or Appropriately
Latina victims of domestic violence reported that police responding to calls for help generally did not intervene effectively and did not follow either pro-arrest or mandatory arrest procedures that were in place at the time that the survey was conducted. Although the police responded within fifteen minutes to over half (54.4%) of the calls, the response time was in excess of an hour in 14% of the cases.117 Survey participants were asked questions about incidences in which they had placed calls to the police for help during a domestic violence incident. Almost half (49.9%) of the battered immigrants who reported that they had called the police for help had called for help on more than one occasion. In response to the question regarding whom the police spoke to when they arrived on the scene, 31% of the immigrant victims who called for help reported that when the police arrived they spoke to others on the scene instead of the victim herself, and in 11% of the cases police spoke only to the abuser. This may be due in part to the fact that only 34% of officers communicated with the victims in Spanish.
These communication problems are even more troubling in light of the fact that the vast majority of battered immigrants who called the police (72.7%) reported making multiple calls for problems related to domestic violence. Of the battered immigrant women who called the police, 93.8% were experiencing severe physical abuse and were more likely to have experienced previous injuries. Immigrant women survey respondents also reported that they were experiencing abusive incidents at frequent intervals. Over half were abused at least once a week. In addition, among the battered immigrants who called the police, 98.1% experienced a history of criminal domestic violence offences.
This research also found that in addition to having a history of severe and frequent physical abuse (which often constituted criminal acts), 100% of the battered immigrant women who called the police were injured at the time of the call. A large proportion (59.6%) of the battered immigrants who called the police during a domestic violence incident reported that they had visible injuries when police arrived. Of the women who called, 51.1% reported that other evidence of domestic violence was present on the crime scene including torn clothing, property in disarray or the police officer witnessed violence or threats. Disturbingly, 34.8% of these women reported that two or more additional types of evidence were present. When the police arrived at the scene of the domestic violence incidents reported by the women in this survey, 68.9% of the time at least one injury or other form of crime scene evidence was present.
Despite the prevalence of physical evidence, crime scene evidence and the history of the abuse (that with proper interviewing the police could have discovered), the arrest rate for abusers when police responded to calls from the battered immigrants in the survey was only 28.6%. Further, this arrest rate is even more troubling in light of the fact that 32.7% of the battered immigrants who reported domestic violence to the police already had protection orders in place.
Police interventions need to be improved so that all battered women and battered immigrant women get the response they need when calling the police for help during a domestic violence incident. When the police arrive as they did in the cases reported by women in the survey, see evidence of domestic violence including visible injuries and fail to make an arrest or fail to get a warrant for his arrest, their lack of action to punish the abuse sends a clear message to all involved. The abuser of the battered immigrant learns that he can continue to abuse and the police will not stop him and the victims learn that what the abuser has been telling her all along - that the police will not help her - is the truth, and they will be less likely to contact the police again.132 On the other hand, when police see evidence of abuse and make arrest, victims feel "good because …people have helped" them.
IV. Policy Implications, Service Provisions and Training Needs
Contrary to misperceptions, battered immigrant women are often willing to call the police for help to stop incidences of domestic violence perpetrated against them. Willingness to call the police is affected by immigration status, how long a battered immigrant has lived in the United States, the number of support persons she has been talking to, whether or not the violence is beginning to affect her children, and whether she has obtained a protection order. There are many steps that can be taken by police departments to counteract the obstacles that immigrant battered women face in their ability to effectively use reporting to the police to curb, stop and/or try to escape the intimate violence in their lives. Advocates and attorneys working with battered immigrant women can play an important role supporting battered immigrant women's efforts to involve police in her case. They can also advocate for needed reforms in police practices, ideally as part of a coordinated community response to domestic violence that reflects the needs battered immigrant women.
A. Utilizing legal resources that protect immigrant battered women
Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) Protections
Until October of 2000, many battered immigrants who were in the United States on temporary visas had no real immigration protection from their abuser's power, control, abuse and retaliation. The Violence Against Women Act of 1994 (VAWA 94)66 offered access to legal immigration status for battered immigrants abused by their U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident spouse or parent without the abuser's knowledge or control ("Violence Against Women Act"). The Violence Against Women Act of 2000 (VAWA 2000)67 recognized that despite VAWA's 1994 protections, there were still many battered immigrants who were effectively cut off from many resources within the justice and social services systems that they and their children needed to be able to escape ongoing domestic violence. As a remedy for the plight of battered immigrants not provided protection by VAWA 1994, Congress expanded VAWA protection to offer, for the first time, legal immigration options for battered immigrants without regard to the immigration status of their abusers and without regard to whether the abuser is a husband or parent.68 VAWA 2000 created a non-immigrant crime victim visa ("U visa") for immigrant crime victims who can successfully demonstrate substantial physical or mental injury stemming from criminal activity.69 The U visa is offered so long as the victim is, is likely to be or has been willing to be help in a criminal investigation or prosecution.70 The victim must also obtain certification from a police officer, prosecutor, judge or other federal, state or local authority investigating or prosecuting the criminal activity71 to be filed along with the victim's self-petition. After three years, a crime victim awarded a U visa can apply for lawful permanent residency if she can demonstrate that she needs to remain in the United States for humanitarian reasons, for family unity or because her presence is in the public interest.72 With this new U-visa option, many more battered immigrants can receive protection and safely access police protection without suffering immigration consequences or risking deportation.
This research among battered immigrant women demonstrated hat more than one fourth of women surveyed contacted the police for help with domestic violence at least once. This contact indicates that not only that battered women's advocates, legal services and pro bono attorneys and immigration rights groups, but also police and other justice system personnel who do in fact interact with battered immigrants need to learn about U visa protections. Each must play an active role in identifying those immigrants who qualify for U visa and VAWA protection and providing immigrant crime victims with information about options through which they can attain legal immigration status. The police and those they work with including: prosecutors, court house staff and judges must be encouraged not only to identify victims who may qualify for VAWA or the U visa, but further provide U visa applicants with the certification they need from a government official so that immigrant crime victims can file for the U visa protections Congress created for them. Such actions benefit both victims and society. They simultaneously enhance protection fore the victim and her children and at the same time strengthen the ability of police, prosecutors, courts and the state to hold abuser of immigrant victims accountable for their criminal actions.
B. Developing Policies and Outreach Strategies That Build Upon Factors
That Encourage Battered Immigrant Women to Call the Police For Help
a. Breaking the silence
Isolation is a major control tactic used by abusive partners with their victims. It includes such acts as prohibiting contact with family and friends, forbidding the abused woman to work or attend school, and isolating her from her friends and family members and may include using threatening or offensive behavior toward them. Through, isolation, an abused woman is cut off from important sources of social and tangible support that are essential to her efforts to escape, avoid, or remain safe from abuse. Social support has been shown to be extremely important in battered women's efforts to gain assistance.
The battered immigrant women in this survey who reported calling the police for help in a domestic violence incident were all persons who had spoken to two or more people about the domestic violence prior to calling the police. Of all the women who had spoken to more than one person about the abuse, 31.9% called the police for help. None of the women who reported never having spoken to anyone about the abuse called the police regarding domestic violence. Importantly, it appears that the act of talking to others about the abuse was key. The type of response they received from the individuals with whom they spoke about the abuse, whether it was supportive or non-supportive, did not influence whether women who spoke to one or more persons about the abuse were willing to call the police for help.
A common stereotype exists that abused women who do not leave the relationship are not trying to extricate themselves from the violence in their lives. This misconception is particularly troubling since immigrant women in particular need to be able to access justice and social service system assistance in order to counter violence without regard to whether or not they wish to separate from their abusers. The culturally based barriers to leaving an abusive relationship reported by other reseachers97 were found to be extremely high for the battered immigrant Latinas in this survey population.
Comparing battered immigrants, who at the time of the survey were still living with their abusers with those who were not, it was found that cultural norms and concerns about the role of the woman as wife and mother in Latino families, a woman's cultural and religious obligation to keep the family together, and concerns about not having value in the community as a single woman/mother were pervasive factors that kept battered immigrants from leaving their abusers. In a previous analysis of data of this research study, we found that Latinas still residing with their abusers reported higher rates of the following barriers: fear of losing children (48.2%), a need to keep the family together (41.2%, not wanting to separate children from their father (41.2%), the perception that a good wife/mother does not leave (18.8%), and religion (18.8%).98 Concerns about how a single woman would be treated by the community were also ranked higher for battered women still with their abusers, including the fear of being alone, no one would want me and gossip The other culturally related barrier that was higher among those still with their abusers was the inability to speak English (25.9%).99
Despite these strong cultural disincentives to seeking help, the data showed that the vast majority of the battered immigrants surveyed reported talking to one or more persons about the abuse.100 For many battered women the first step in the help-seeking process is talking to people about the abuse. Other methods by which women try to escape or avoid the abuse include calling the police, obtaining a protection order, going to shelters, speaking with clergy, obtaining a separation or divorce from the abuser, using children for protection, and complying with the batterers urges.101
Studies have suggested that the most common way for a woman to receive help is through a progression of these methods. Most women go from personal methods (talking with the abuser), to informal (talking with a friend), to formal strategies (going to a shelter, clergy or social services agency), to legal strategies.102 If they meet success at each of these steps, they will be more confident about their chances and continue to take steps to end the violence. At the same time, unsuccessful attempts such as calling the police for help and receiving a response that does not take the violence seriously can undermine the battered woman's efforts to take control over her life and stop the violence. 103 This survey's findings about the connection between battered women's efforts to confide in others about the abuse and her willingness to call the police provides strong evidence that, contrary to prevailing stereotypes, battered immigrants do take steps to bring an end to domestic violence even when they have not chosen to separate from their abusers.
Since many women who are in violent relationships actively seek help either though informal or formal methods, it is important that those persons they are most likely to talk to are educated about how to respond appropriately. The majority of battered immigrant women turn to a female friend or female relative when they are ready to speak to someone about the abuse they are experiencing.104 The
therefore it is important to impart information about domestic violence, laws and social services available to victims to all females in immigrant communities.
This information needs to be adapted and translated for use in diverse immigrant populations. Battered women's programs, police, and courts considering translating domestic violence outreach materials for various immigrant populations should not merely hire translators to translate existing materials developed for English speaking U.S. born battered women. Rather they should contract with community-based organizations that have experience serving battered immigrants from various immigrant groups and have the organization's experts adapt and interpret the outreach materials. This approach will ensure that the resulting outreach materials will be culturally competent and work most effectively in reaching the targeted groups of immigrant victims.105 Outreach and educational campaigns geared toward immigrant women should be designed to reach both the victim and the women she turns to for help. When women who are turned to for support are informed, they are better able to effectively aid the victim in understanding that the violence is not her fault and to help her take appropriate steps to increase the victim and her children's safety including escaping the abuse.106 In order for police to best help the victims, they should employ female officers more often. Victims may be more likely to open up to a woman officer just as they are more willing to talk to female friends and family members.
Through community policing, officers can establish relationships with immigrants and thus increase the chance that the victim or someone in whom she has confided will attempt to get legal help. Community policing efforts need to be designed to specifically involve immigrant community members. Departments may need to have separate meetings with various immigrant communities to create an opportunity for community members to address issues important to them. However, community policing in immigrant communities will only be effective in addressing domestic violence issues if female members of the community become actively involved. Police will have difficulty reaching immigrant women if the community members attending community-policing activities are predominately male. To address the problem of how to reach female members of the immigrant community, police should collaborate with community-based organizations that work with immigrant women and victims of domestic violence.
Identifying and collaborating with community-based organizations serving battered immigrant women has other advantages for the police. Professionals in these organizations can work closely with police on individual cases by offering assistance with translation and offering a place that police can bring immigrant victims for culturally competent services. Through such collaborations, police can also receive specialized training about the various needs of immigrant domestic violence victims and of immigrants, and thus will be better prepared to handle calls for help from battered immigrant women. Police domestic violence units and programs that collaborate with victim advocacy programs should work with victim advocacy groups to ensure that the services of these collaborations are accessible to immigrant victims. Ideally, bilingual, bicultural advocates should be hired and interpreters with training in domestic violence should be hired to assist with languages other than those spoken by police department personnel and victim advocates.
The police can also take a leadership role in identifying other professionals who need to learn about domestic violence and the dynamics of domestic violence in immigrant communities. In their outreach efforts, police can involve professionals who come in contact with immigrant women in their work. There are many professionals from whom battered immigrants seek services that never identify domestic violence victims or make information about domestic violence available to those who seek their professional services. These professionals along with the police should receive training on domestic violence and should become part of outreach efforts on the issue. The professional services that immigrant women seek mostly include: immigration lawyers, maternal and child health care providers, child care and reproductive health care providers, public benefits agencies from which they seek services for their children, emergency medical services, and English classes.107
Community based organizations and the police should work together to develop outreach campaigns designed to educate battered immigrants and their support persons and ensure that they can call the police without fear of being reported to the INS. These community education campaigns should also include the distribution of educational materials to crime victims by the police and community based organizations. These materials should be available in all relevant languages, describe VAWA immigration relief and U visa protections, and contain referrals to local agencies that can help immigrant victims. Additionally, police should be encouraged to bring immigrant crime victims to community-based agencies that can offer them culturally competent services.
b. Training Officers Not to Inquire Into the Immigration Status of Crime Victims
Police departments must undertake a variety of activities to increase the likelihood that battered immigrant victims of domestic violence will call the police for help. First and foremost, they should identify the significant language minority and immigrant populations within the community. Police should then develop collaborative working relationships with community-based organizations, grassroots women's groups and churches that serve the identified immigrant community.
The next step is to address immigrant victim's fears that police and other justice system official will report them to the INS for deportation .Departments should train all officers to refrain from asking the immigration status of victims who call the police for help. Officers must be informed that there is no federal law that requires that state and local police inquire about the immigration status of crime victims or witnesses. The training should explain current immigration law requirements, clarify that no officer has an obligation to ask a crime victim questions about immigration status or report to INS persons who may be undocumented, and eliminate officer misunderstandings about reporting.
It is important to note that individual police and justice system personnel in some jurisdictions have misconstrued provisions of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRAIRA)73 and have used that incorrect reading of the law to justify an individual officer's voluntary choice to ask battered immigrants and other immigrant crime victims questions about their immigration status. There have been isolated incidents in which police, prosecutors and judges have reported victims to the INS.74 If battered immigrants believe that police will report them to the INS when they call for police protection from their abusers, women and children will continue to endure ongoing abuse rather than call for help and their abusers' crimes will go unpunished. Such a confusion and fear is bound to increase among immigrant women in light of the prevailing post-September conditions of Home Security.
Much confusion about reporting stems from common misunderstandings about particular provisions of IIRAIRA that became law in 1996. IIRAIRA preserved and expanded protections for battered immigrants that had been included in VAWA 1994. However, IIRAIRA contained many revisions to the immigration law that were intended to be harmful to immigrants in general. One such provision was designed to outlaw sanctuary city ordinances under which local jurisdictions mandated that their employees not inquire into the immigration status of persons who came into contact with city government. Section 287(g)(10) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) was amended by IIRAIRA to require that all jurisdictions allow any officer or state government worker who chooses to do so to communicate with INS regarding the immigration status of any individual.75 This section also allows any state employee to choose to voluntarily cooperate with INS in identification, apprehension, detention and removal of any persons not lawfully present in the United States.76
Some police officers, prosecutors and judges to justify their decision to inquire about the immigration status of crime victims have misinterpreted section 287(g) (10) of the INA. Some go so far as to argue that inquiries into immigration status of crime victims are mandatory.77 From the face of the statute, this is untrue. Local law enforcement does have not authority to enforce the civil provisions of immigration law. There are only two instances in which a local, state or federal law enforcement officer would be required, under federal law, to ask questions about immigration status. Perpetrators arrested by law enforcement officers for drug related offenses must be referred to the INS if the officer has reason to believe that the perpetrator may not be lawfully residing in the United States.78 The only other instance in which state officials can be required to seek information about the immigration status of persons they encounter and then report such information to the INS is if the state has a contract with the U.S. Attorney General to carry out immigration investigations.79 As of the writing of this article, the only jurisdiction in which local law enforcement officers have been deputized to enforce the civil provisions of immigration law is Florida.
No police officer or justice system official is required, as matter of law, to inquire into the immigration status of crime victims who turn to the system for help. When individual officers choose to inquire into the immigration status of crime victims, they are essentially deciding that volunteering to help the INS is more important to them than bringing criminals to justice. Officers who adopt this approach undermine community relations between the police department and immigrant communities and encourage the commission of crimes against immigrant victims. This approach can and has led to the deportation of battered immigrant victims who qualified for legal immigration status under VAWA, but who were deported without ever being informed of that right or being given an opportunity to prove their eligibility.
The results of this survey underscore that police departments and other justice system officials must take active steps to counter perceptions that immigrant victims cannot safely turn to the police for help without risk of being reported to the INS. To counter these perceptions, police departments should train their officers not to inquire into the immigration status of crime victims. The training should explain in detail how voluntary reporting by individual officers undermines immigrant community trust in the police and will discourage immigrant crime victims from calling the police. Police departments should also meet with domestic violence service providers and groups providing legal and social services to the immigrant community to publicly explain that police officers have been trained not to ask questions about the immigration status of victims.
Conclusion
Survey results among Latina immigrant battered women provide important information for advocates, attorneys and law enforcement officials about battered immigrant women. Despite the fact that they must overcome significant challenges to do so, many battered immigrant women are willing to call the police for help to curb domestic violence. One of the most significant factors affecting their willingness to call a battered immigrant woman's own immigration status and her fear of deportation if she contacts law enforcement officials. Those who had stable immigration status called the police more often than those who did not. Yet, despite this finding, this group of Latina women regardless of their immigration status, still called the police less often than the general population of battered women.
In addition to the immigration status, the women's willingness to call the police was influenced by the type, level, and frequency of violence they experienced. Women who experienced more severe forms of abuse, who endured injuries and who experienced more frequent incidents of violence were more willing to call the police for help. If a battered immigrant woman's children witnessed the violence, she was significantly more likely to call the police for help. Finally, a key finding in the survey was that without regard to the severity of the violence, no battered immigrants reported called the police for help unless they had previously spoken to someone else about the domestic violence. The persons immigrant women chose to talk to about the abuse were almost always other women. This finding underscores the importance of communicating to women in immigrant communities that immigrant women can and should call the police for help when they or a friend of theirs has been a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault or trafficking. If immigrant women learn from police behavior in their communities that calling the police means that they will be reported to INS, it will have a chilling effect on immigrant victim calls for assistance and it will become virtually impossible to prosecute abusers, traffickers and sexual assault perpetrators if their victims are non-citizens.
These findings have clear public policy and training implications. It is extremely important law enforcement personnel to increase their knowledge about the avenues for legal immigration status currently open to battered immigrants and other immigrant crime victims, including VAWA self-petitioning, VAWA cancellation, the T visa for trafficking victims and the U visa for immigrant crime victims. Police officers should actively participate in providing information and referrals to immigrant victims and providing certifications and documentation that will assist immigrant victims in obtaining legal immigration status. These efforts will both enhance safety to victims and further law enforcement efforts to hold perpetrators of crimes against immigrant victims accountable.
Further, as a matter of public policy supported by this Congress, law enforcement officers should not be inquiring into the immigration status of crime victims who call the police for help. Encouraging police to report crime victims to INS rather than encouraging police to arrest and prosecute abusers of immigrant victims will deter immigrant victims from calling the police for help out of fear of their own deportation and abusers and perpetrators will be free to continue their abuse and to endanger other members of the community at large.