New regulations[1] assume combining competences of all institutions responsible for domestic violence prevention as part of interdisciplinary teams[2]. These institutions are supposed to cooperate starting from the moment of the Police intervention. Yet, this solution doesn't work well in practice.
The new procedure called ”Blue Cards”[3] is too bureaucratised and time-consuming. According to NIK, it may discourage the affected from reporting violence cases. In line with the amended provisions, victims are called to a meeting of the interdisciplinary team or a working group where they have to talk about what they went through in front of a wide audience. Perpetrators often ignore the calls since the interdisciplinary teams have no tools to make them come to such meetings. As a consequence, fewer and fewer cases of domestic violence come to the surface. However, the scale of the phenomenon does not decrease as the number of domestic interventions remains almost unchanged.
The NIK audit results show that the set-up of interdisciplinary teams and working groups has delayed support for violence-affected families. Previously, it was the Police alone that took action, within the maximum period of seven days from reporting a case. Currently, it is no longer the Police but the interdisciplinary team which decides on the need to visit a family. The provisions, though, do not specify the dates of the teams’ meetings. Besides, their members - usually professionally active persons - receive no compensation for their time spent at the meetings. Consequentially, despite significant involvement of many people, interdisciplinary teams are ineffective. It happens that a district constable visits a family only after 2-3 months from reporting a violence case. In extreme cases it is after as long as half a year from the first intervention of the Police. Until that moment the family remains without support. Therefore, NIK appreciates the practice used by many Police headquarters which send the district constables to affected families much earlier, not waiting for a decision of the interdisciplinary team. For instance, the district constables from the Poviat Headquarters of the Police (KPP) in Mielec visited families within seven days from the moment of obtaining information on the violence incident, and in the KPP in Bartoszyce it was 10 days on average.
Perpetrators of domestic violence are usually given suspended sentences. In the period audited by NIK it was the case in 80 percent of violence incidents. On the other hand, recommended corrective and educational measures that could lead to permanent change of the perpetrator’s behaviour were used only in 6 percent of cases.
In line with the new regulations, communes are obliged to guarantee free support for the violence victims, including the shelter in a specialist centre. Due to insufficient funds, though, there is a shortage of such institutions and the existing ones do not comply with effective standards. In the audited period, there was only one support centre with 25 places on the area of 14 communes. A lot of the audited centres lacked rooms for interviews with persons affected by violence. The number of social workers was too small. Let's take an example of the City Social Welfare Centre in Sierpc providing one employee per 2340 town inhabitants on average. It is comforting, though, that starting 1 August 2010, violence victims have a broader access to psychological, legal, social and family advisory.
[1] The Act of 10 June 2010 on the amendment to the Domestic Violence Prevention Act and the Ordinance of the Council of Ministers of 13 September 2011 concerning the ”Blue Cards” procedure issued based on that Act and the ”Blue Card” form templates.
[2] Interdisciplinary teams - bodies established with the aim to prevent domestic violence, associating representatives of the Police, education, health care, the Municipal Alcohol Abuse Committee, non-governmental organisations and probation officers.
[3] ”Blue Cards” [Niebieskie Karty] is a procedure encompassing a spectrum of actions taken on domestic violence suspicion, including filling out of the Blue Card form concerning the incident by a Police officer or another eligible person.
