Police officers' perceptions of gender-motivated violence in Canada

Abstract

Police officers‟ perceptions of gender-motivated violence against women have been overlooked in hate crime research. In an attempt to fill a gap in the hate crime, violence against women, and policing hate crime literature, I examine how nine police officers understand gender-motivated violence in Canada using vignettes, sentence-competition tasks, and an interview guide. Here, participants are asked about their perceptions of and experience with hate crime and gender-motivated hate crime against women. Results indicate that the majority of participants do not perceive hypothetical instance of violence against women as hate crime, all of which is a product of: victim-perpetrator relationships, ambiguous motives and alternative motives, and definitional constraints with legal terms. Equally, factors and conditions that influence police officers‟ perceptions relate to: the typical victims of hate notion, police routine and experience with hate crime and gender-motivated violence, hate crime legislation, hate crime policies and procedures for police, and hate crime training for police.