I had the privilege of attending a focus group on victim intimidation with predominantly law enforcement professionals yesterday. As the only healthcare provider in the room, I was trying to impress upon the group that clinicians have a stake in victim intimidation, and that the healthcare implications are significant. Although people most often think of victim intimidation in organized crime and gang cases, we see it more often in DV, sexual assault, child abuse, and even elder abuse cases. Which leads us to this post, because I’m interested in a couple things:
- How much are you hearing about examples of victim intimidation in your practices (adult or child victims)?
- Are you doing anything specific with information about victim intimidation in individual cases?
- Are there things healthcare could do better related to instances of victim intimidation disclosed by our patients (e.g. documentation, policies, discussion at SART or other MDT meetings, etc.)?
I know many of you are shy about sharing your thoughts in the comments, but I’m going to ask that you please leave your 2 cents there. It’s a great discussion topic and my hope is that people’s responses spur others to provide their own. We’re looking at some potential projects related to this issue, and I’d love people’s feedback on the issue. Because, really, there’s no point in putting resources into something that frontline clinicians don’t value or consider relevant.
Thanks!
7 replies on “Victim Intimidation”
If I understand this correctly.. I have seen some of this in the context of not ‘verifying’ a pts feelings esp in intial stages of treatment (for ex DV or other crime victims while they are in acute crisis )With some service providers there can be an ‘air’of minimizing or judgementalism of the situation. Education within our own peer group is very important. I also would like to add that if the service providers themselves have these same issues going on in their own lives or at home or others close to them and havn’t let the ‘light shine’ and dealt with it care is hindered IMO.
How much are you hearing about examples of victim intimidation in your practices (adult or child victims)? We tend to hear about this as we enter the court system with our cases and discover cases have been dropped or thrown because victims have been intimidated and subsequently recanted or refused to testify altogether.
Are you doing anything specific with information about victim intimidation in individual cases? By the time we learn about this there is little we can do other than discussing it within the SART response.
Are there things healthcare could do better related to instances of victim intimidation disclosed by our patients (e.g. documentation, policies, discussion at SART or other MDT meetings, etc.)? No question, incorporating routine follow-up exams into our care practices would better allow us to address directly any victim intimiation issues that are occurring and direct the patient to effective team resources.
@JPW: you’re so right about follow up services, and it’s one of the things I didn’t even think about…
@Ann: minimizing is one of my most significant concerns about healthcare’s response. I couldn’t agree more.
How much are you hearing about examples of victim intimidation in your practices (adult or child victims)?
I have personally seen this happen in my own practice, and unfortunately, it is even intimidating to me, as the practitioner (when I see it going on)! I think that it is individual with the interviewer, and we (in my practice) seem to see this in spurts, but not often, thankfully.
Are you doing anything specific with information about victim intimidation in individual cases?
If it happens when I am in the room, I will ask the interviewer to step outside and confront (again, this is even intimidating to me, so difficult, but I have done it). The next step is to bring it to our SART meeting and ask for resolution at this level.
Are there things healthcare could do better related to instances of victim intimidation disclosed by our patients (e.g. documentation, policies, discussion at SART or other MDT meetings, etc.)?
I think SART meetings are the ideal time to discuss this….but again, I also find it is usually individual in nature (a specific interviewer for example)…and that needs to be addressed at the agency level. However, another way we have attempted to address is by having team member education on a larger level….I love JPW’s idea about the follow-up exam being a good time to address. I also find that the advocate is a really valuable team member during these difficult times
I’ve been seeing and hearing (from our patients) of police officers telling women reporting sexual assault ‘if this cannot be proven, you’ll be charged with a felony of making a false police report’. I have been hearing this so often over the past 2-3 years, I went to our local chiefs of police and we developed a law enforcement protocol which forbids this practice during the initial information-gathering, however, the protocol has not been enforced and the practice continues in most of the police agencies in our community.
I’ve been asked to work on a state-wide protocol developement project for police which will be lead by the regulatory/credentialling body for police in our state that I hope will lead to the development of education, tools and accountability for officers.
I realize there are allegations that may not be true, but my concern is without a complete, objective investigation how would that ever be known? I also see this kind of approach, during the intital phase of reporting as VERY effective in making almost all individuals decide they do not want to participate in the criminal justice system, which kind of seems to be the goal of some offiecrs.
I don’t see this behavior as being intentially malicious on the part of officers, but rather a lack of education on issues of interpersonal violence, lack of experience with these complex cases, and little accountability.
I’m really interested in how much of what *we* see is police-based intimidation. Because, of course, so many people think about intimidation coming from assailants or their associates to keep people from reporting the crime or cooperating with prosecution. However, what we see if systems-based intimidation quite a bit. I wonder if people are seeing other systems contributing to intimidation besides law enforcement?