Human factors shaping the cooperation of police with other sectors: The example of domestic violence

Policing is a profession with a significant human factor component, and police psychology has contributed to its structure to improve police relations throughout various fields of crime prevention and intervention. Within police and in police-client interaction, the management of the human factor has become quite elaborate. However, in the challenging field of police cooperation with other professions in domestic violence management, there is a lot of uncharted land. The EU-funded research project IMPRODOVA sought to address this topic in an empirical approach via document analyses and expert interviews. IMPRODOVA’s main objective was to improve the cooperation and performance of frontline responder ecosystems to high-impact domestic violence considering existing heterogeneities across different settings. Its major results show, how communication, vision and leadership, and organisational learning are the key areas to be reinforced to support police interagency cooperation. Outputs for police practice (including an open access training website) are discussed in the following. Also, recommendations for police multi-professional and inter-agency cooperation are presented.