LOCAL research shows that abused women are likely to make almost 40 attempts to get help or leave the relationship, before eventually doing so, according to the police.

Their procrastination and even the fact that they keep taking back their abusive spouses time and time again, often fail to elicit any sympathy from law enforcement and other front-line responders.

“A lot of police and persons wouldn’t know that on average, a woman is likely to be abused and go through the help-seeking process about 35 times before she finally makes up her mind to get treatment,” says Assistant Commissioner of Police Novelette Grant.

“That is the average time between the woman going to the police and leaving the man. So when the police or social worker keep seeing the same persons come to report that they are being beaten, and yet not willing to take any action, which from their perspective seems logical, the response is likely to be inappropriate,” Grant told the Observer.

According to Grant, one of the biggest problems confronting Jamaica is domestic violence, yet up until 2000 many police still struggled to address this issue effectively. The assistant commissioner is one of the innovators behind a new training programme designed to help police personnel handle domestic abuse cases with more sensitivity.

It is the need to address the wider impact of domestic violence on families, communities and countries which has also seen the rebirth of a national programme to train people in communities to work alongside the police to address this scourge.

The programme, which was first rolled out between 2000 and 2004, was relaunched in West Kingston late last year, as part of the constabulary’s drive to improve community policing.

The intention is for a budget to be found for the programme to be rolled out islandwide, and according to Grant, it has received the full support of the security ministry and the police commissioner.

Grant said the aim is to help the police treat domestic violence as a crime, while recognising the need to network with other community, government and non-government agencies.

“We hope to see the police make arrests where appropriate or make referrals in other cases,” she said.

Grant was one of 12 persons who worked with the Caribbean Association of Feminist Research and Action — who are anti-domestic violence advocates — to develop the manual to train police officers and social workers how to best respond to domestic violence.

“After a bad event involving domestic violence, people in communities would often say, ‘we knew this was going to happen because they had this long-standing abusive relationship’, and so I felt that the police and social workers were not the only respondents that could help,” she said.

“What about the pastor, health workers, guidance counsellors in schools, clerks in the court offices and host of other persons who I thought if we got them together with police and social workers that would broaden the network and we would be able to provide the sort of response to those who need help,” she said.

Grant said the motivation to revive the programme comes at a time when the Jamaica Constabulary Force is implementing the strategic review recommendations, one of which is centred around community policing.

The programme, Grant said, not only addresses violence by someone’s partner or spouse, but looks at the entire family situation, where hostilities between parents affect the psychological, physical, emotional and financial well-being of other family members.

She pointed out that often, both the victim and the offender require counselling and support.

“What happens to the children if the man is locked up? These are some of the issues why women sometimes back off because they are of the view that if the police become involved and just warn him that will be enough,” she said.

Domestic violence, she offered, is not a private matter, but one which affects the entire community. She, however, noted that Jamaica does not have the relevant data to reflect the monetary and human development costs associated with this type of violence.

“Children who are witnesses or victims of domestic abuse are impacted, and people who are injured can’t go to work, so that puts a strain on productivity, and a drain on the health care system to deal with the physical and psychological injuries,” Grant said, adding that there are direct and indirect costs when the police intervene.

Police Inspector Louis Brown, one of the officers involved in the training programme, told the Observer that prior to 2000, the law-enforcers were ill-equipped to deal with domestic violence.

Brown, who said he worked in the downtown and Matilda’s Corner police area in Kingston for more than 20 years, said domestic violence is treated differently uptown than it is downtown.

“Domestic violence is no respecter of persons, as I see it downtown and uptown, but those downtown suffer because they think it is a cultural norm for a man to abuse a woman, but in uptown the ladies will report it and so they will get help,” explained Brown who is now stationed in Santa Cruz.

He believes the police need to change their method of policing and become more proactive.

“We see where most of our serious crimes are as a result of domestic violence… so we believe if we intervene we will be able to prevent the wounding, murders and damage to property,” he said.

He argued also that the police need to find ways of creating social partnerships to tackle the situation.

“One of them is to train the corner man, youth club leaders, church elders and pastors, football team captain and even the ‘don’ who has control over an area,” he said.

Natoya Williams, a resident of Tivoli Gardens who was trained as one of the programme’s mediators for that community, said she has already had to put that training to the test.

According to the 28-year-old, most of the domestic violence incidents in which she has had to intervene involve teenage girls.

“One night I heard a big argument where two young girls, age 14, were fighting over a guy. One of the girls told me that the guy had hit her because he was with the other girl as well and told her that she was interfering,” she explained to the Observer.

Williams said the training she received enables her to deal with these incidents professionally.

“Being a woman, you might want to be more on the woman’s side, but I have been taught how to keep my emotions out of it and to listen to both sides of the story,” Williams said.

In addition to mediation, Williams explained that the group of 10 who were trained from that community were sensitised on parenting and bridging gaps between the police and members of the community.

“I was taught mediation, counselling and how to inform people about domestic violence, and where they can go to seek help from the community level,” she said.

She added further, “for example, if a woman was in a violent situation with her partner, we were taught how to tell them about social services like shelters, social workers and churches which would offer other alternatives to returning to the home”.

According to Williams, both the abused victim and the children of the union will be able to receive the necessary help.

Detective Sergeant Ava Lindo, assigned to a special team in Tivoli Gardens, said residents have welcomed the police’s intervention in domestic violence.

“When we just came, people say dem nuh want no police down here, but once the information is given and learning has taken place, you can see the transition being made slowly,” she said.

“Someone will come and say, ‘mi nuh have nothing to do with police, because all of them ah the same thing’ and someone who would have benefited from any of the programmes we would have done, would say ‘no man, ah different type of police here,” Lindo added.

Now, she added, persons are seeking out the police to intervene in incidents of domestic violence.

Assistant Commissioner of Police Novelette Grant addressing a training course for police on how to deal with domestic violence.