Policing Intimate Partner Violence: The ‘Golden Thread’ of Discretion

This paper offers a critical appreciation of pro-arrest-positive policing policies towards intimate partner violence (IPV). It examines the extent to which such policies, and the research associated with them, have operated within a partial understanding of discretion, which has paid detailed attention to the response of the front-line officer and how that response might be changed either by improved training and/or by rule tightening. Such approaches assume that policing IPV is separate and separable from policing other forms of violence(s) and fail to recognize the wider context of the policing task. This paper makes the case for a more holistic understanding of discretion (to include senior officers) as a way of promoting improved responses to IPV. This also means directing attention to policies and practices in relation to IPV to include police engagement with broader agency and societal responses to IPV. This is the point at which a holistic ‘golden thread’ of discretion can be found.

A Mid-Victorian Coverup: The Case of The “Combustible Commodore” and the Second Anglo-Burmese War, 1851–1852

The origins of the Second Anglo-Burmese War in late 1851 were the subject of a Mid-Victorian bipartisan and bureaucratic coverup throughout 1852-53. The Government of India in Calcutta had successfully maintained a policy of “non-intercourse” following removal in 1840 of its diplomatic representatives from Burma despite frequent uncoordinated calls for remonstrance by merchants, missionaries and military administrators. In 1851, a convergence of factors, most notably the alleged mistreatment of British subjects in Rangoon, captured the President in Council's attention in Calcutta resulting in a policy change which led to armed intervention. Calcutta's renewed interest in Burma occurred while politicans in London prepared to scrutinize the bureaucratic relations between the London-based Cabinet and the East India Company.Official discussions in Calcutta about Burma occurred while Governor General Dalhousie was “up country on progress” and at the very time that the Council wanted to test its capacity to act independently. The Council resorted to a unit of the Royal Navy then in Calcutta enroute from Acheh to the Persian Gulf. Commodore George Robert Lambert offered to deliver letters to Burmese authorities in Rangoon and negotiate on behalf of the English subjects. Lambert's reputation for moderation recommended him to Calcutta officials. His instructions from Council and private letters from Dalhousie advised caution and the avoidance of confrontation. Yet Lambert, a line officer, ultimately responsible to the Admiralty in London, could conceivably ignore Calcutta's wishes and chart his own course.