(Family & Intimate Partner Violence Quarterly) Spring 2016
Abstract: This article shines a light on the extremely risky landscape on which family members of abusive police officers are forced to live. In this piece, author Alex Roslin articulates the terrifying situation endured by many spouses of domestically violent police officers as they seek protection from a partner who happens to carry a gun, because he happens to be a police officer. Among the most intractable barriers to justice is the habitual extension of “professional courtesy” as per the “thin blue line” of police officers who “protect their own.” Casting this situation in an even more dire light is the fact that the rate of abuse perpetration by police officers is 15 times higher than in the general population. © 2016, Alex Roslin.
Alex Roslin is an award-winning investigative journalist and author of the book Police Wife: The Secret Epidemic of Police Domestic Violence, 2nd Ed. (Knowlton, Quebec: Sugar Hill Books, 2016), winner of the American Society of Journalists and Authors’ Arlene Book Award and a finalist for four other international book prizes.
Read the article here.
