Most police officers do not want to work in the domestic violence unit due to the heavy responsibilities that come with the role, Superintendent Sylvana Gafà has admitted.
Speaking at FIDEM’s Women’s Day conference during a panel discussion titled ‘Promises, Promises: Accelerate Action for Victims of Domestic Violence’, the police Victim Support Unit head explained that many officers are reluctant to take on such cases.
“Most of our police officers don’t want to work in the domestic violence unit. They don’t want to be involved in those cases,” she said.
She added: “You have to be responsible for your actions for each and every decision you take because of other repercussions.”
She said the introduction of new standard operating procedures had eased the pressure slightly for officers over the past year.
Previously, officers had full discretion over how to proceed with domestic violence reports. Now, all officers must follow the same set procedure based on a risk assessment. If a person scores high, arrest is mandatory. Additionally, if an abuser breaches a protective order by contacting or approaching the victim, police are obliged to arrest them.
'Police there to protect, investigate'
“The police are there to protect and to investigate, but at times they feel helpless or frustrated themselves as well,” Gafà said.
One of the difficulties police face, she explained, is when victims choose not to testify or withdraw from court proceedings. However, she stressed she can also empathise with the victims and understands the fear they might feel when going to court.
She shared a personal experience as a duty officer in a domestic violence case where a victim, once in court, lied under oath – likely out of fear of her aggressor. This put Gafà in a difficult position, having to decide whether to prosecute the victim for perjury. She ultimately chose not to proceed with charges, but not long after, the same woman returned to report another domestic violence case at the unit – once again with Gafà as the duty officer.
“If I didn’t have that approach, maybe she wouldn’t have come the next time to report and inevitably stop that relationship,” she said.
Gafà revealed that 70 officers work in the domestic violence unit, handling an average of six reports per day. Around 75 per cent of these cases involve psychological abuse.
According to the National Statistics Office, in 2023, 3,589 individuals reported experiencing domestic violence or sought assistance from available services.
Malta has the highest rate of reporting domestic and gender-based violence in the EU, according to Eurostat figures, which also show that one in four women has experienced some form of abuse by an intimate partner.