- cross-posted to:
- memes@lemmy.ml
Only three times lol, what is this pro-cop propaganda.
The numbers have to come from somewhere, and we all know how good police are at making accusations against them go away.
So the reality is going to be much, much worse.
Man I really didn’t want to think about this
I don’t use mind-altering substances nor am a cop, but I also like to beat people
in chess
haha get checkmated
NERD
ps: joking, you are very smart, keep going!
Isn’t chess for nerds or something?
All the cool people play shogi (the Japanese version, much cooler)Chess is for people to pretend they are smart, when they are boring af (such as me)
Just to break the irony: I prefer shogi and don’t play chess anymore to the extent where it freaks me out that pawns take pieces by moving diagonal and there are never pieces to drop. That are the most significant differences emotionally when I look at a diagram of a mate puzzle or something. Nevertheless I totally appreciate chess players. It’s a cool hobby even tho it’s not the coolest option out there.
and there are never pieces to drop
Pfft, imagine not playing crazyhouse.
and all the coolest people play go 😎
Something tells me these two groups are not mutually exclusive
I hope not! Cops being on cannabis (even just when off duty) would probably save lives every day.
Cops on Cannabis - good band name!
*the ones who will admit to beating their wives
So this begs the question, is there a base chance to beat your wife? Can someone express that percentage to me?
Also I assume most if not all cops are beating their families, right now, even as you read this.
3 times as much as what number?
Statistics are hard to determine on domestic violence
The “40% of cops beat their wives” probably comes from this:
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED338997.pdf
A congressional hearing where a professor testified that officers were asked if they had “gotten out of control and behaved violently towards their spouses or children within the last 6 months” and approximately 40% said yes. This is vaguely worded and while acting violently towards your family is shitty regardless there are a number of ways to interpret that question (beat them regularly, slapped them, yell at them, berate them, isolated incidents vs consistent campaigns, etc)
There is a concept in experimental design called an operational definition, that a behavior should be defined in such a way that observers trying to measure the variable are clear in what they are trying to measure. “Self injury” is poor on its own, but saying “hand to head hits with closed fist” is quite a bit better (though still can be problematic because sometimes intensity can be a problem but I digress)
Neidig study also found a rate of around 41% and is cited to support the claim but if you read the methodology it’s flawed to do this: the operational definition is much improved but the data for 41% includes violence initiated both by cops and by their spouses. If you only include violence initiated by cops it’s closer to 28%. However this does indicate they create toxic relationships based around violence and mutual violence is not uncommon in domestic abuse. There’s a lot more to dynamics in domestic violence (including power dynamics when the police don’t take dv very seriously and power dynamics when your partner is a member of the police who are supposed to respond the arrest them for doing dv)
So that leads to other experimental design issues here. For one, these are self report and this is likely a huge flaw. Think about it, if you were a person beating your spouse, would you be down to admit that to an academic who is absolutely going to document it?
So there have been other studies to address this that look at crime rates via police reports rather than self reports. These show relatively low rates of about 17%. However, this suffers from the power dynamic flaw above. I worked in domestic abuse support for years and several women I worked with were spouses of police (and firefighters too fwiw). Per these people their spouses were never charged and often gloated about this; the cops were called often and would do anything to resolve the situation except arrest them. They would drive the spouses somewhere else, the would take the cop out drinking (great idea), etc. I do wonder if a report only gets filed when the damage from dv becomes impossible to ignore; when the cop beats their partner or child so badly they requires intense medical attention or the scene becomes so intense it is a public spectacle
The initial research is from the 90s and not much has been done since, likely because working around these design issues is extremely difficult. I genuinely do not know how one would do it in a way that would not introduce a ton of bias and error. The only thing I could even think is that you could interview spouses but that is almost as flawed as the officer self report. I would imagine there is a culture of intimidation there preventing open dialogues plus there is always the chance for false positives I suppose.
To add to this, I’ll toss in a copypasta I’ve seen that has a few other/different links/info:
Hello, you seem to be referencing an often misquoted statistic. TL:DR; The 40% number is wrong and plain old bad science. In attempt to recreate the numbers, by the same researchers, they received a rate of 24% while including violence as shouting. Further researchers found rates of 7%, 7.8%, 10%, and 13% with stricter definitions and better research methodology.
The 40% claim is intentionally misleading and unequivocally inaccurate. Numerous studies over the years report domestic violence rates in police families as low as 7%, with the highest at 40% defining violence to include shouting or a loss of temper. The referenced study where the 40% claim originates is Neidig, P.H…, Russell, H.E. & Seng, A.F. (1992). Interspousal aggression in law enforcement families: A preliminary investigation. It states:
Survey results revealed that approximately 40% of the participating officers reported marital conflicts involving physical aggression in the previous year.
There are a number of flaws with the aforementioned study:
The study includes as ‘violent incidents’ a one time push, shove, shout, loss of temper, or an incidents where a spouse acted out in anger. These do not meet the legal standard for domestic violence. This same study reports that the victims reported a 10% rate of physical domestic violence from their partner. The statement doesn’t indicate who the aggressor is; the officer or the spouse. The study is a survey and not an empirical scientific study. The “domestic violence” acts are not confirmed as actually being violent. The study occurred nearly 30 years ago. This study shows minority and female officers were more likely to commit the DV, and white males were least likely. Additional reference from a Congressional hearing on the study: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951003089863c
An additional study conducted by the same researcher, which reported rates of 24%, suffer from additional flaws:
The study is a survey and not an empirical scientific study. The study was not a random sample, and was isolated to high ranking officers at a police conference. This study also occurred nearly 30 years ago.
More current research, including a larger empirical study with thousands of responses from 2009 notes, ‘Over 87 percent of officers reported never having engaged in physical domestic violence in their lifetime.’ Blumenstein, Lindsey, Domestic violence within law enforcement families: The link between traditional police subculture and domestic violence among police (2009). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/1862
Yet another study “indicated that 10 percent of respondents (148 candidates) admitted to having ever slapped, punched, or otherwise injured a spouse or romantic partner, with 7.2 percent (110 candidates) stating that this had happened once, and 2.1 percent (33 candidates) indicating that this had happened two or three times. Repeated abuse (four or more occurrences) was reported by only five respondents (0.3 percent).” A.H. Ryan JR, Department of Defense, Polygraph Institute “The Prevalence of Domestic Violence in Police Families.” http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/4951188/FID707/Root/New/030PG297.PDF
Another: In a 1999 study, 7% of Baltimore City police officers admitted to ‘getting physical’ (pushing, shoving, grabbing and/or hitting) with a partner. A 2000 study of seven law enforcement agencies in the Southeast and Midwest United States found 10% of officers reporting that they had slapped, punched, or otherwise injured their partners. L. Goodmark, 2016, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW “Hands up at Home: Militarized Masculinity and Police Officers Who Commit Intimate Partner Abuse “. https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2519&context=fac_pubs
In response to this I would say that the studies here overrely on self report, which is inherently flawed when asking someone to report on a character flaw
I go back the philosophical question: if you beat your partner would you reveal this to an academic who is going to put it on the record?
Some may, but a lot won’t. Inherently flawed.
The original source of the oft-spread “40%” figure also counted incidents where the one reporting was the victim. If cop/civilian couple had “a one time push, shove, shout, loss of temper, or an incidents where a spouse acted out in anger” within the relationship, with the cop being on the receiving end of the civilian spouse’s ‘abuse’, that relationship was tossed into the ‘domestic violence’ bucket, because it was actually counting relationships, not cops.
My point is that yes, you can definitely argue one might be reluctant to admit to one’s own acts of DV, but I don’t think anonymously reporting your spouse’s acts against you would be ‘stifled’ the same way.
I agree with you in that it wouldn’t stifled the same way but I still think it would be an inherently flawed measure in determining the true number of cases, which is probably impossible. Going back to my original post even if you allowed anonymous reporting I’m betting a lot of partners would still not speak out due to intimidation and you would probably get some false positives (though admittedly this is probably significantly less of a concern)
Doesn’t mean it’s not worth doing as it would probably get you something closer to an accurate number but the accurate number is likely impossible to measure
At the same time, any effect like this would likely be present to an equal or very similar degree in any measurement of DV among the general population, so while it could be harder to confidently report an absolute figure, you could much more confidently compare them relative to each other (such that you can easily refute “three times more likely” claims like in the OP).
You could just say you’re pathetic.
And I’d be right to, if I was the kind of person who called someone else names for no reason beyond supplying evidence that contradicts an assumption/bias of mine.
You’re the one who fits that description here, though.
As people less likely to beat their wives.
As one wife, so therefore cops have 3 wives.
Nationwide average.
The overall average
Time to get funky https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=btX7h68FqNo