One of the aspects that comes with conducting this legal assistance study is interviewing domestic violence victims and those on the judicial side who deal with DV cases. I was fortunate to get the opportunity with a couple different judges in the Valley, as well as a victim.
The first thing I have come to learn when dealing with this topic is sensitivity about the issue, and who it affects. When speaking to judges I found that from their point of view these types of cases can be extremely difficult. When asked why, most of the responses focused on the orders of protection being violated by victims, letting the abuser back into their lives. Another good issue that was pointed out were double orders of protection. This would occur when the abuser and the victim would both get OOPs without the other knowing. It is a problem that the judicial system out here is working with. This potentially could be a huge problem if the couple had children at home.
Another thing I came across was the issue of handling these types of cases. When talking to and seeing responses from victims and judicial professionals, more dv training was listed more often than I would expect. The sensitivity behind these issues was the biggest concern, however it can be an arduous task to understand every facet problem in regards to the issue.
Lastly, with the growing population of non-English speaking people in not only Arizona, but the United States outreach and help from domestic violence can be tough. People who cannot understand where to go or how to get helped based on the fact that they cannot speak English should be helped as well. It can be a tragedy to witness a person or persons going through these types of problems and not seeking help.
I believe the interviews were a key part in the study, and will help add more value to the report. It can also be interesting to see responses on a face-to-face perspective, rather than someone choosing responses from a set of questions.
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You point out very important benefits of qualitative research. It is an important supplement to a quantitative approach, and in some cases it offers insights that can be used in quantitative study. One of the particular problems with domestic violence is the difficulty in understanding how pervasive it truly is. This is leaving aside the functional problem of the many differing definitions of the phenomenon.
ReplyDeleteOn a similar note, a few years ago I was analyzing some open response data from a survey and found that, in analysis, there are a number of interesting methodologies in drawing out meaning from this type of data. The openness to difficult-to-trace manipulation is, I believe, what makes this type of social scientific method so difficult to provide as backing. How do you think your office will try to overcome this problem?