Gay Domestic Violence (Essay Sample)

Research Proposal: Do Police Officers Have Negative Attitudes towards Gay Domestic Violence While on the Job?
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Research Proposal: Do Police Officers Have Negative Attitudes towards Gay Domestic Violence While on the Job?
Police officers come under scrutiny when it comes to the violation of human rights. In this research analysis, we have analyzed how police officers react to gay domestic violence.
Research Question
The research question of the proposed study: Do police officers have negative attitudes towards gay domestic violence while on the job.
Previous Research
Several previous studies have handled the same topic. Most of the findings from the studies have shown that police officers have negative attitudes towards gay domestic violence. Melton (1999) conducted a research on the issue of police and their reaction to gay violence. In his research titled ‘Police Response to Domestic Violence,’ he presented his findings in a diverse manner. According to him, the best way to understand the police officers' attitudes towards gay domestic violence is to take into consideration issues from a historical perspective (Melton, 1999). Historically, there has been an antagonistic relationship between the police officers and the gay community (Melton, 1999). In the past, gay relationship was illegal, and the police officers used to hunt down the gay community. In this process of law enforcing, a bitter relationship built up between the police officers and the gay community. Because of the antagonism in the past, current gay domestic violence cases remain unreported as the gay community still has the phobia.
A study by Kuehnle & Sullivan (2003) also put some importance on this topic. According to their findings, some police officers have the homophobia culture (Kuehnle & Sullivan, 2003). This irrational hatred and fear of gay of the police influences their action when dealing with cases of gay domestic violence. As a result, most police officers on duty tend to distance themselves from the cases of gay domestic violence presented to them (Kuehnle & Sullivan, 2003). Consequently, abusive gay partners take the advantage of the homophobia of the police to control and dominate their partners. Therefore, the abused partners continue suffering because they are less assured that the police or the justice system will not help them because they are homophobic. The victimization surveys undertaken between the 1980s and the 1990s showed that in the United Kingdom and United States of America (USA) and Australia showed that 70-80% of the gay men experienced physical violence (Kuehnle & Sullivan, 2003). Unfortunately, most of the cases remained unreported because of the perception that the police and legal system of the respective countries were homophobic (Kuehnle & Sullivan, 2003).
On the other hand, the police officers believe that gay domestic violence is not as severe as the situation involving a woman abused by a male partner (Seelau & Seelau, 2005). In their study titled ‘Gender role stereotypes and perceptions of heterosexual, gay and lesbian domestic violence,’ there is a perception that police officers treat gays unfairly (Seelau & Seelau, 2005). The police officers also believe that the gay partners receive mutual abuse because the relationship involves same gender partners. Thus, the police officers tend to attend to cases involving heterosexual domestic violence more as compared to gay domestic violence (Seelau & Seelau, 2005). For instance, they have the understanding that in a gay relationship, one partner acts as a female and the other partner as a male. However, the previous research outcomes have not thoroughly examined the attitude of police officers towards the gay domestic violence. The previous studies have acted as a foundation to conduct the research that is going to examine the relationship. In addition, this research is going to be a concrete foundation for future studies on the same topic.
Hypotheses
Three hypotheses will be guiding the study. The study will work with three hypotheses, two research hypotheses and one null hypothesis. The first research hypothesis reads: police officers have negative attitudes towards gay domestic violence. The other research hypothesis reads: there is an antagonistic relationship between police officers and the gay community. The null hypothesis of the study will see if police officers have negative attitudes towards gay domestic violence, and they have a good relationship with the gay community.
Independent Variables
The study will have five independent variables. The first independent variable is the age of the police officers involved in the study. The operational definition of the variable will define the age of the police officer participating in the study. The third variable will be the causes of gay domestic violence and its operational definition as how many cases of gay domestic violence have each police officer handled. The variable will measure using a ratio scale. The third independent variable will be the sexual orientation of the police officers involved in the study. The operational definition study the sexual orientation of the police o...