40% of cops beat their spouses
1y 10d ago by midwest.social/u/seahorse in memes@midwest.social from midwest.social
- 40% of cops freely admit to abusing their spouses, when guaranteed anonymity.
Hello, you seem to be referencing an often misquoted statistic. TL:DR; The 40% number is wrong and plain old bad science. In attempt to recreate the numbers, by the same researchers, they received a rate of 24%, but only while considering acts like shouting as violence. Further researchers found rates of 7%, 7.8%, 10%, and 13% with stricter definitions and better research methodology.
The 40% claim is intentionally misleading and unequivocally inaccurate. Numerous studies over the years report domestic violence rates in police families as low as 7%, with the highest at 40% defining violence to include shouting or a loss of temper. The referenced study where the 40% claim originates is Neidig, P.H.., Russell, H.E. & Seng, A.F. (1992). Interspousal aggression in law enforcement families: A preliminary investigation. It states:
Survey results revealed that approximately 40% of the participating officers reported marital conflicts involving physical aggression in the previous year.
There are a number of flaws with the aforementioned study:
The study includes as 'violent incidents' a one time push, shove, shout, loss of temper, or an incidents where a spouse acted out in anger. These do not meet the legal standard for domestic violence. This same study reports that the victims reported a 10% rate of physical domestic violence from their partner. The statement doesn't indicate who the aggressor is; the officer or the spouse. The study is a survey and not an empirical scientific study. The “domestic violence” acts are not confirmed as actually being violent. The study occurred nearly 30 years ago. This study shows minority and female officers were more likely to commit the DV, and white males were least likely. Additional reference from a Congressional hearing on the study: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=umn.31951003089863c
An additional study conducted by the same researcher, which reported rates of 24%, suffer from additional flaws:
The study is a survey and not an empirical scientific study. The study was not a random sample, and was isolated to high ranking officers at a police conference. This study also occurred nearly 30 years ago.
More current research, including a larger empirical study with thousands of responses from 2009 notes, 'Over 87 percent of officers reported never having engaged in physical domestic violence in their lifetime.' Blumenstein, Lindsey, Domestic violence within law enforcement families: The link between traditional police subculture and domestic violence among police (2009). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/1862
Yet another study "indicated that 10 percent of respondents (148 candidates) admitted to having ever slapped, punched, or otherwise injured a spouse or romantic partner, with 7.2 percent (110 candidates) stating that this had happened once, and 2.1 percent (33 candidates) indicating that this had happened two or three times. Repeated abuse (four or more occurrences) was reported by only five respondents (0.3 percent)." A.H. Ryan JR, Department of Defense, Polygraph Institute “The Prevalence of Domestic Violence in Police Families.” http://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/4951188/FID707/Root/New/030PG297.PDF
Another: In a 1999 study, 7% of Baltimore City police officers admitted to 'getting physical' (pushing, shoving, grabbing and/or hitting) with a partner. A 2000 study of seven law enforcement agencies in the Southeast and Midwest United States found 10% of officers reporting that they had slapped, punched, or otherwise injured their partners. L. Goodmark, 2016, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY LAW REVIEW “Hands up at Home: Militarized Masculinity and Police Officers Who Commit Intimate Partner Abuse “. https://digitalcommons.law.umaryland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2519&context=fac_pubs
While I did, originally, post my comment with the word 'beating', I edited it within 30 seconds after my 'wait a minute, better check that' routine kicked in.
40% of cops freely admit to abusing their
Please note the word 'abusing'.
I made that edit in under a minute of originally posting this.
You made your reply approximately 3 hours later.
...
Abuse is often more than just physical impacting a person with some object.
Screaming, shouting, persistent gaslighting or threats... forcing spouses into sexual acts they don't want to have, etc etc.
If you wanna stick to ... Brigham Young University, named after a polygamist child-rapist domestic terrorist cult leader, whose cult persists today via massive gaslighting of its adherents and doctrinal denial of its historical past... some asshole who works at the 'Polygraph' Institute, a private, for profit 'college', mainly dedicated to training people how to use a nearly entirely scientifically discredited form of accurately detecting lying...
Go right ahead.
I'll stick to 40% being an accurate number for physical and non physical domestic abuse.
You can keep licking the boot if that's what you're in to.
...
I used to work for a DV shelter.
We accepted women, and families, who were never physically attacked... all the goddamned time.
I suggest you reevaluate your username.
I suggest you reevaluate your username.
I suggest you don't parrot bullshit alarmist statistics in service of your ACAB narrative. When the narrative takes priority over the facts, you stop being someone worth taking seriously.
40% of cops freely admit to abusing their
This is also straight-up false. The figure in that survey didn't come from the participants' definition of "abuse", but from the surveyors creating their own nonsense definition of domestic violence, that not only includes singular acts no reasonable person would classify as domestic violence, but treated relationships where it was the cop committing the 'domestic violence', and where the cop was the recipient of the act(s), identically.
Imagine telling a cop whose spouse is abusive to him that they "freely admitted to abusing" the spouse, because that ridiculous survey just put all of the relationships containing their criteria into the 'domestic violence bucket'.
You're just a bigot rationalizing the propagation of bad data.
Bottom line: If that figure wasn't bullshit, it would surely have been replicated at least once in the many similar studies conducted in the FORTY YEARS since it came out. You are literally using the same tactics as people who claim vaccines cause autism, based on desperate clinging to that one study by Wakefield that was completely debunked decades ago.
Abuse is often more than just physical impacting a person with some object.
Who do you think you're kidding? You don't believe that raising one's voice ONE TIME to one's SO is enough to consider one a 'domestic abuser'. Nobody believes that.
You know what I wrote. You very conveniently, and very deliberately, left off the 'single instance' part on purpose. Your disingenuousness is pathetic, especially when the evidence of your strawmanning is right there in black and white, just above your comment. You should be ashamed.
I suggest you reevaluate your username.
Funny way to end a comment chock full of denial and narrative-clinging, despite the actual data. Only one of us is letting their personal biases take precedence over the facts, and it's not me.
Please don't hurt me officer.
I'll do whatever you say, just please don't hurt me.
Well done, friend.
So, just gonna let you know, ... I presume Mr. ObjectivityIncarnate... you got so emotionally charged in your response that you both began and ended your raging rant here with the same quote... I didn't realize it would trigger you that hard, you being all objective and such.
I guess this way come as a shock to you, but abusive relationships can often go both ways.
Further, back in the 90s, the terms 'domestic violence' and 'spousal abuse'/'abusive relationship' ... they were not as well defined as they are now, 35 years later.
Which is again why I used the word 'abused', which, in the context of psychology terminology, is in fact broad enough to encompass that 40% stat, while the modern term 'domestic violence' is not.
Its good to try and use as objective terms as possible, yes?
Now ... you've again exposed that this is an emotional issue for you, by being the first in this conversation to name call me, ad hom me.
A bigot? Really?
Am I bigotted against police?
Are you offended by my objectively correct characterization of Brigham Young and Mormons?
... Are you a Mormon Cop, lol?
Who do you think you're kidding? You don't believe that raising one's voice ONE TIME to one's SO is enough to consider one a 'domestic abuser'. Nobody believes that.
Oh my goodness, all caps, like you're trying to scream at me through the screen...
Maybe not one single time, but yeah my threshold for getting screamed at by someone is very, very close to one, after having been raised in such an abusive family environment that I now have (C)PTSD. Never got physically beat, but, as I said, there are many other ways to be abusive.
A lot of those women I helped get into DV shelters are of the same opinion.
......
... You also seem really hung up on this 'single instance' thing.
Yeah, a single instance of abuse... is abuse, a single instance of it.
Do... does abuse ... only count to you... if someone does it a certain number of times?
Like if I punch you in the face just once, that isn't battery, but if I do it, I dunno, 8 times... now it counts as abuse?
I suggest you inhale and exhale, slowly, 3 times, hold each breathe as long as you can... helps me calm doen when I'm having a PTSD flashback, also just generally works with anyone to help recenter yourself, calms you down.
He destroyed you and you're in toxic denial.
Or rather, he didn't destroy you - he just refuted and debunked your claims with well reasoned arguments and knowledge.
Thing is: anyone with some experience in sociology (and a modicum of critical faculties) will immediately doubt the notion that 40% of cops (or most any other group of people for that matter) abuse their partners. That's just not how humans work. We know because we've studied ourselves literally millions of times.
You'll get over it. But much more important than that - hopefully realize that intellectual honesty is exactly what we need in times such as ours.
Cops are more likely to score higher on PPI scores than the average person.
PPI meaning Psycopathic Personal Inventory. There are different exact variants of this test, but they're all a long series of questions asked by psychologists to assess and score how much of a psycopath someone is.
Roughly one third of all Americans have been in an abusive relationship at least once in their lives... and its often the case that people who have been in one, end up being in multiple.
Again, where 'abusive' has a broader definition than just physical assault or rape.
Which... it does, in psychology.
So uh... 40% of cops abusing their partners isn't really ludicruously, implausibly higher than that number for the total population.
Abusive relationships are unfortunately quite common and even generally normalized in much of society.
I could throw a bunch of links to papers at you, but, seeing as they are easily websearchable, I don't feel the need to.
...
Also, you have a fairly sparse comment history, and those comments are ... oddly timed, typically occuring in bursts, seperated by weeks or months.
So... either you have a very, very strange engagement pattern with lemmy, just by chance...
Or you are an alt account.
Which would be especially ironic as using an alt account to pose as another random person who suddenly drops in to what had up to this point been a one on one discussion... is a very disingenuous, manipulative thing to do... you know, like something an abusive person would do?
No amount of rationalization or intellectualization is going to change the basic facts of the matter.
I don't have an alt account on lemmy or anywhere else for that matter. I actually work for a living. And it's related to sociology, which is how I know you are talking out of your a**.
You are delusional and hardcoping. Get out more. You don't need to be "right" as much as you think you do. In fact, no amount of being "right" will ever come close to the benefits of being wrong. As long as you realize them.
Best of luck, friend.
gaslighting intensifies
I'm sure it does.
you got so emotionally charged in your response
Projection.
raging rant
There isn't even a single exclamation point in my response to you. I emphasized a few things in all caps instead of italics only because it was easier to do on the input method I was using at the time. But, as you did in the rest of what you wrote in response to me, narrative (in this case, 'this cop-worshipping bootlicker is contradicting me, how dare they') comes first, then you try to squeeze everything you see into a structure that fits that narrative. Classic 'I didn't mean to cut him off, honest mistake' vs. 'that guy cut me off because he's an inconsiderate piece of shit' duality.
you seem really invested in this.
Once you're on a roll, you gotta keep going!
Not really.
It's a copypasta, and not made by me. First time I saw it years back, I checked all the sources out, looked legit, and now it easily comes to mind whenever I see someone spreading the 'common misconception'/'ACAB propaganda' (depending on how generous your interpretation of the person's motive), and is just as easily shared/pasted in response.
I don't even know any cops, lol, I'm not acting out of any sort of bias. I'm just compelled to correct misinformation when I identify it.
, I’m not acting out of any sort of bias.
ah, simply a bootlicker. cute. you fanboy authorities everywhere or just the piggies local?
Truth isn't a boot. All I did was correct inaccurate information.
Cry about it.
Truth isn’t a boot.
yes, we understand you have no interest in the truth, only fetishizing authority.
Colossal projection. I'm the one who refuted inaccurate, deliberately-misleading information with multiple sources. You're the one who's uninterested because it contradicts your precious narrative.
Also, rubber bullets being fired at head height are punching holes into store windows. Protesters don't use rubber bullets, but the damage will be blamed on them anyway.
They call them rubber bullets, but they're not rubber bullets. They're rubber coated cannonballs.
protesters don't use rubber bullets
Yes, because they're all so bloodthirsty.
Don't bullshit us. They don't cry about it.
Oh, they don't hesitate and you know it.
I will never understand the mind of the shitlib. "No please, don't respond to the overwhelming violence with violence of your own!" The actions of this country are sickening, but it seems like liberals are able to tolerate it in the name of "peace" even once it comes home.
Reactive abuse (self defense?) is always used to shift responsibility.
Eta: also abuse by proxy.
Won't somebody think of the billionaires
I do it all the time: smoked, stewed, or braised with fresh vegetables and a dry white wine.
If you could actually eat him to end him, but had to finish ALL of him, hair and nails and guts included, in less than 72 hours, and if you failed, he would come back even stronger and you and everybody you knew would die, would you?
that's the SELF REPORTED number! in reality it's much, much higher.
That's the self-reported number in a single shitty survey from the 1980s that counted a relationship as having "domestic violence" if either spouse (the cop or their partner) raised their voice once at the other in the past 6 months.
There are very good reasons this figure has never been replicated, when using a definition of "domestic violence" that actually makes sense.
Incessantly citing one extremely flawed ~40-year old survey is just telling on yourself about where facts and your preferred narrative are prioritized relative to each other.
We live in the Misinformation Age, where people on all sides of any issue prioritize their pure motives over truth. The irony is that even when there's overwhelming factual information to justify an opinion and absolutely no need to make shit up or exaggerate, people still do - and objecting for integrity's sake makes you the enemy.
The dude you replied to actually got refuted into another comment, and ended up bringing out an alt to talk himself up and support himself lol.
Dunno about the alt but their other major exchange I see here seemed to go meta pretty quickly, massive essays of no u, no u.
Nothing I said got refuted (unless you count 'nuh uh' plus personal insults as refutation), and that was another person, not me.
I invite you to point out one single example of anything they said that refuted anything I cited.
Oh no, a bunch of megacorporations lost a few million dollars. Im truly pouring one out for my favorite megacorporations and I hope they have a good fiscal quarter /s
a few million dollars
Maybe on the insurance claim lmfao.
I didn't know Ostriches could type!? You have to be one, since you've got your head stuck in the ground or something, because megacorps weren't the only ones being looted. I even recall a clip where a bunch of looters were trying to pull open a door to a small store.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-06-10/downtown-la-businesses-vandalized
Truthfully, a few opportunistic looters is not reason enough to shut down protests against fascism. Yes, it is unfortunate if any small businesses were affected by looting. No, its not a gotcha.
Even small businesses have insurance. Especially in California. Ask me how I know.
Oh, and you saw a clip? Do you live in LA, or even CA? Are you sure that clip was this particular batch of protests and not old footage?
Property damage is not violence.
The other 60% lie better.
Oh snap
That isn't really true.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fact-check-posts-claiming-40-110000305.html?guccounter=1
The Neidig study stated in its abstract, "Survey results revealed that approximately 40 percent of the participating officers reported marital conflicts involving physical aggression during the previous year." However, that "physical aggression" included violence perpetrated by the officers' spouses. The results for violence perpetrated in the relationship in general was 41% for male officers and 40% for female officers. Importantly, Neidig's results for violence specifically perpetrated by the officers against their spouses were much lower: 28% for male and 27% for female.
So 28% is the number, really, and "physical violence" is not necessarily the same thing as "beating their spouse." That could mean shoving them, or pulling their arm or something. One criticism of the original study is how vaguely it defines "physical violence".
I know I will be labeled as a bootlicker, and I swear I'm not, I just don't like misinformation and on lemmy all the misinformation is leftist. On PCM on reddit I spend my time calling out conservative BS.
The one thing I'd point out here - physical abuse is physical abuse. "Just shoving them" is still physical abuse.
Getting punched in the face doesn't need a clarification as to whether a bone was broken or not, its still a punch to the face.
I'd also note that according to the CDC around 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men have experienced some degree of physical abuse in their lifetime. So the rate for police - in their active relationship and self-reported by officers against their own spouses - is still drastically higher than the average.
Agreed on the inaccuracies of information though.
Yes, I am not trying to downplay the seriousness of any physical violence, or ignore the fact police officers are more likely to be domestic abusers. However, the post title does say "beat their spouses" which to me implies, at the very least, the intent to harm and actually inflicting physical harm, neither of which are implied in physical violence.
neither of which are implied in physical violence
Lets agree to disagree on that.
physical violence.
actually inflicting physical harm
What am I missing here? You don't think 'physical violence' implies 'physical harm'?
No not really. If I throw a punch at you that is an act of physical violence. But if I miss or the punch doesn't hurt you at all, I have not inflicted physical harm. That's why assault and battery are different charges even though both are violent crimes.
A distinction without a meaningful difference. Throwing a punch at your spouse but missing is still you throwing a punch at your spouse.
Just because you didn't make contact doesn't mean you aren't a danger
Sure, when using the throwing a punch example. But there is a big difference between someone shoving or slapping their partner and someone beating their partner. Both are obviously bad, but only one of them would be an example of "beating your spouse", and obviously that is much worse.
Nah man, I don't think that matters.
In the context of domestic abuse, it doesn't matter if your spouse leaves a mark or physically injures you, it still creates an environment of fear for your physical safety. Displaying any willingness to cross that boundary with your spouse creates fear that they could cross it again, or go further. That's what makes 'beat your spouse' such an evocative description to begin with. It isn't supposed to be a precise classification of the type of violence you committed against them, just that you violated that physical barrier that shouldn't be crossed. You can play semantic games and try finding a less objectionable term for it if you want, the truth is that even a slap or a shove is a severe betrayal of marital trust, and undermines the feeling of security that every person has a right to in their domestic environment. I think "beat" is a perfectly fine word to describe someone who willing to do that to their spouse.
Beat: "to strike repeatedly: : to hit repeatedly so as to inflict pain"
You're the one playing semantic games not me. I didn't see anything about betraying trust or undermining security. Slapping or shoving someone and beating them are very different things. They are both very bad in a domestic setting but one is clearly worse than the other.
A little further down on that page:
But sure, I guess you can insist on a specific definition from that particular definition if you feel the need to make that distinction to the exclusion of certain types of violence you personally don't think are as severe. I'll say it again: that distinction is without a meaningful difference. Might be meaningful to you, but not to victims of abuse.
Whatever, agree to disagree then. You're not going to convince me that someone who once shoved his wife in an argument-or "attacked her verbally"-is a "wife beater".
If I knew someone had shoved their wife violently I'd have a hard time seeing them in any other way.
Regardless of the methodology, the figure is meaningless in isolation. What's meaningful about the study is the comparison to other professions using the same methodology.
Some more info for your reference: https://lemmy.world/comment/17626812
Omg did corporate america have to take a miniscule loss. Send in the military!
Also, the stores were probably hit by riot munitions.
This meme is fantastic 10/10
Apple shouldn't support tyrants if they want sympathy. It's not likenirs a franchise.
The stores were asking for it
I agree there's a lot of abusers in the police. The 40% is an unreliable study, it's old and counts really low level things like slamming doors as domestic abuse. Big issue is not considering the pattern of behaviour and coercive control. For example she finds out he's cheated and slaps him in a one off assault... illegal, but ongoing coercive control isn't there. DA perps in the police needs more research really, which hopefully will happen.
I wish my spouse would beat me off now and then
I can help with that
Maybe those megacorps should have another disincentive for aiding and abetting murder, treason, and genocide then. Just a thought.
Plus those ads, I mean, did you see what they were wearing?
More people need to reflect the way society treats women onto these corporate giants that actively work against our self-interest as the general populace.
That said, there's very rarely a good reason to hurt local business, so I do hope they stay away from mom and pops.
wont these phones just gonna get locked by apple by imei anyway?
Nice