FEAR – A REASON FOR NOT REPORTING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE TO THE POLICE
FEAR – A REASON FOR NOT REPORTING DOMESTIC VIOLENCE TO THE POLICE

Summary/Abstract: Domestic violence is a social issue which is present in our society for centuries; it is often hidden between partners and the family itself that makes documenting its existence and prevalence difficult. Even though in recent decades there was an attempt to move the issue from the private to the public sphere, it still encounters difficulties. This is due to the fact that women, victims of violence, face various barriers to report domestic violence to the police. The main purpose of this study is revealing the most predisposed categories to domestic violence, with a special emphasis on women as domestic violence victims; the reasons influencing women to continue staying with abusive partners and not report domestic violence to the competent authorities and the society’s trust in these authorities. The theoretical analysis and statistical methods are used in this paper, the latter is used to statistically present the results obtained by the online questionnaire used in the survey, enabling the presentation of results through tables and graphs. By analyzing the obtained results in this study, we conclude that women are the most predisposed category to violence. The reasons impeding violence reporting are many, but we will mention the most important: not knowing where to seek assistance; thinking they will not be taken seriously or trusted by others; fear of divorce or relationship termination; fear of smearing their family name; fear of further violence and fear of losing the children. Lack of trust in competent state authorities to prevent, deter and protect domestic violence victims is another reason, whereas the findings show that respondents have little trust in these authorities.

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