Assessing police and protective order reports of violence - What is the relation?

The purpose of this study was to examine the amount of agreement between po lice and victims' reports of domestic violence. Data were examined from 77 couples in which the female member of the couple filed for a protective ord er and the couple had contact with the police about domestic violence. The hypothesis tested was that police and victim reports of physical violence w ould have some measure of agreement due to the serious nature of physical v iolence but that there would be little agreement for verbal violence or men acing behavior. Victims reported significantly more physical violence than police; however, there was a significant correlation between victims' repor ts of physical violence and police reports. These results suggest that alth ough there is some relation between victim and police physical violence rep orts, victims perceived more violence had occurred than police reported.