Unprepared for information interactions: abuse survivors and police

Purpose – Working towards a broader understanding of information provision by agencies responding to crisis situations, the aim of this paper is to examine mandated information provision on the part of law enforcement to survivors of intimate partner violence at the scene of an emergency response.Design/methodology/approach – The authors conducted a detailed content analysis of 1,851 documents supplied by local law enforcement agencies from 755 US cities. A 29‐element coding framework was developed to identify five key content areas of information: the nature of abuse, survivor norms, police information, legal options, and community resources.Findings – The best represented content areas related to police information, legal options, and community resources. Information on the nature of abuse and survivor hood was dramatically less well represented. Law enforcement understandably privileges that information which involves immediate, concrete action and within which the officer may have a responsibility (fo...