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Identity categories and the dilemma of calling police about family violence

journal contribution
posted on 2025-01-21, 04:01 authored by Emma TennentEmma Tennent, A Weatherall
The under-reporting of family violence is a global problem. Multiple barriers to help-seeking have been identified, including some associated with social identities like race, age and gender. This discursive psychology study examines identity and help-seeking in social interaction. We analysed 200 calls classified by police call-takers as family harm using conversation analysis and membership categorization analysis. We found that callers oriented to a locally generated identity category ‘the one who called police’ as problematic. Callers sought anonymity or proposed cover stories to avoid being identified by others. Anonymity raised practical problems for recording callers' names and cover stories raised questions about the legitimacy of alternative accounts for police contact. We found callers' concerns with being identified create a dilemma produced through competing moral judgements tied to coexisting institutional and relational identity categories. Participants display understandings that calling the police may be the right thing to do as a help-seeker, but the wrong thing to do as a friend or family member. Our findings reveal how a locally generated identity category was observable as a force shaping help-seeking in real-time high-stakes encounters.

History

Preferred citation

Tennent, E. & Weatherall, A. (2025). Identity categories and the dilemma of calling police about family violence. British Journal of Social Psychology, 64(1), e12839-. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjso.12839

Journal title

British Journal of Social Psychology

Volume

64

Issue

1

Publication date

2025-01-01

Pagination

e12839

Publisher

Wiley

Publication status

Published

Online publication date

2024-12-14

ISSN

0144-6665

eISSN

2044-8309

Language

en