Victims with particular needs: children, older adults, newcomers and other communities

Brooks opens with three short case notes from the Port Ardent unit's files, details changed. The first is about Agnes, seventy-eight, whose husband of fifty-five years has started locking her in the bedroom when he goes out, saying it is for her own good. The second is about Amina, twenty-nine, who arrived in the country fourteen months ago with her husband; he keeps her passport and tells her she will be deported if she calls the police. The third is about Chris, thirty-four, whose male partner has told him that if he leaves, the partner will tell Chris's employer and his parents that he is gay. 'Three different people,' Brooks says. 'One pattern. Control, isolation and fear. But each of them faces barriers to help that the standard response was not built for. If you treat them all the same, you will fail at least two of them.'

This lesson looks at groups of victims whose circumstances create particular risks or particular barriers to safety and justice. Desjardins cautions against treating any group as a stereotype. Each person is an individual, and the purpose of knowing about these barriers is to ask better questions and remove obstacles, not to make assumptions. The same principles from earlier lessons apply to everyone: take the report seriously, look for the pattern, assess risk, gather evidence that stands on its own and connect the victim with support.

Children and youth

Lesson 1 described the harm to children who live with intimate partner violence and the duty to report. Children are also victims of physical and sexual abuse in their own right, most often by someone they know. Children rarely disclose abuse all at once. They may hint, test the reaction of a trusted adult, disclose part of what happened, or take it back if the response frightens them. Officers who receive a disclosure from a child should listen calmly, avoid leading questions, write down exactly what the child said, and arrange a forensic interview by a trained interviewer as soon as possible, rather than conducting a detailed interview themselves. In Ontario, children's aid societies and police investigate together under local protocols, often through child advocacy centres, and a recorded interview of a child under eighteen can be admitted at trial under section 715.1 of the Criminal Code if the child adopts it while testifying.

Teenagers experience dating violence at high rates, including controlling behaviour through phones and social media, sexual coercion and the sharing of intimate images. Many do not recognize it as abuse, or fear that telling an adult will mean losing their phone or their privacy. Officers who respond to youth should take the relationship seriously, be aware of the laws on intimate images and on the age of consent described in Lesson 6, and involve parents or guardians with care, since a parent may not be safe or may be part of the problem.

Older adults

Abuse of older adults includes intimate partner violence that has continued for decades or begun late in life, and abuse by adult children, other relatives and caregivers. It takes physical, sexual, psychological and financial forms, and neglect. Financial abuse, such as misusing a power of attorney, taking pensions or pressuring the person to sign over property, is especially common. Older victims may be dependent on the abuser for care, may have cognitive impairment that makes disclosure difficult, may feel shame, or may fear being moved into a care home. Officers should speak with the older person alone, at a pace that suits them, with hearing aids or glasses if needed, and should not assume that confusion means the person cannot give an account. Ontario does not have a general duty to report abuse of older adults living in the community, but there are reporting duties for abuse of residents in long-term care and retirement homes, and police can refer older victims to community elder abuse networks and support services. Agnes's case was handled with her consent through a referral to an elder abuse response team, a safety plan with her daughter, and charges of forcible confinement after a second incident.

Newcomers and immigrants

Immigrant and refugee victims face distinct barriers. They may not speak English or French fluently, may not know their rights or the law, may have had frightening experiences with police in other countries, and may depend on the abuser for their status, income and housing. Abusers often exploit these vulnerabilities, for example by holding passports and documents or by threatening deportation or the loss of the children. Officers should use qualified, independent interpreters, never the abuser or a child, explain the process simply, and make clear that police are there to help.

Immigration rules include protections for victims. Since 2019, Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada has been able to issue a fee-exempt temporary resident permit to a person without permanent status who is experiencing family violence, with an open work permit and health coverage, so that they do not have to stay with the abuser to stay in the country. Permanent residents are not deported simply for leaving an abusive sponsor; the conditional permanent residence rule for sponsored spouses that could have had that effect was removed in 2017. Victims should be referred to settlement agencies and legal clinics for advice on their specific situation. Amina's officer arranged an Arabic interpreter through the language line, referred her to a settlement agency and a legal clinic, and recovered her passport from her husband during the execution of a warrant.

Indigenous victims

Indigenous women and girls in Canada experience violence at much higher rates than other women. Statistics Canada data show that Indigenous women are several times more likely than non-Indigenous women to be victims of homicide. The National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, which reported in 2019, found that this violence is rooted in colonialism, including the residential school system, the child welfare system and the dispossession of land, and that police responses had often been inadequate and marked by stereotyping. Its final report set out 231 Calls for Justice, including many directed at police. Section 718.201 of the Criminal Code requires sentencing courts to give particular attention to the circumstances of Indigenous female victims of intimate partner violence. Officers should know about Indigenous-led services such as Talk4Healing and local friendship centres, work with First Nations police services and community leaders, and recognize that distrust of police is grounded in history. In the community policing course, the class met Elder Marion Shawanda and Sergeant Paul Keeshig of the Nimkii Bay First Nation; Keeshig tells the class that in Nimkii Bay, a victim who calls the police may be calling someone who knows her whole family, which can make reporting both easier and much harder.

LGBTQ+ victims

Intimate partner violence occurs in same-sex and other LGBTQ+ relationships at rates similar to or higher than in heterosexual relationships, and transgender people face especially high rates of violence. Abusers may use tactics specific to these relationships, such as threatening to out a partner to family, employers or immigration authorities, or telling a partner that police and services will not help people like them. Victims may fear homophobic or transphobic responses, may find that shelters are not designed for them, and may be isolated if their community is small. Officers should not assume that the larger or more masculine partner is the primary aggressor, should use the names and pronouns the person uses, and should refer to services that are welcoming to LGBTQ+ people. Chris's officer documented the outing threats as part of a pattern supporting criminal harassment, and connected him with an LGBTQ+ community agency that runs a partner violence program.

Men as victims

Men are victims of intimate partner violence and sexual assault, by female and male partners and others. They report much less often than women, because of shame, the belief that men cannot be victims, fear of not being believed, and fear of being arrested themselves. When men do report, they sometimes meet disbelief or ridicule. Officers should take men's reports seriously and apply the same careful primary aggressor analysis described in Lesson 3. Services for male victims are fewer, but they exist, and the crisis lines listed in Lesson 1 serve everyone.

People with disabilities

People with disabilities are victimized at substantially higher rates than people without disabilities, and the abuser is often a partner, family member or caregiver on whom the victim depends. Abuse may include withholding medication, mobility aids or care, and the victim may have difficulty communicating, leaving or being believed. Officers should ask the person how they communicate and what support they need, use communication supports or sign language interpreters, speak directly to the person rather than to a caregiver, and never use the suspected abuser as an interpreter or helper. Section 715.2 of the Criminal Code allows a recorded statement by a witness with a disability that makes communication difficult to be admitted at trial, and testimonial aids are presumptively available.

Rural and remote communities

Victims in rural and remote areas face long distances to services, limited public transportation, poor phone and internet coverage, a lack of anonymity in small communities, and longer police response times. Firearms are often more common in rural homes. Officers in these areas should plan for longer waits for backup, make sure victims have a way to reach help, use phone and video supports where in-person services are far away, and be especially careful about firearms seizure.

# Matching a victim's needs to referrals (illustrative; use your agency's current directory)
referrals = {
    "interpreter": "professional language line (never family or the suspect)",
    "immigration": "settlement agency and immigration legal clinic",
    "older adult": "elder abuse response team or adult protective services",
    "lgbtq": "LGBTQ+ community agency partner violence program",
    "disability": "communication supports and disability advocacy service",
    "indigenous": "Indigenous-led victim service",
    "children": "child protection agency and child advocacy program",
}
cases = {"Agnes": ["older adult"], "Amina": ["interpreter", "immigration"], "Chris": ["lgbtq"]}
for name, needs in cases.items():
    print(name)
    for n in needs:
        print("   ->", referrals[n])

Agnes
   -> elder abuse response team or adult protective services
Amina
   -> professional language line (never family or the suspect)
   -> settlement agency and immigration legal clinic
Chris
   -> LGBTQ+ community agency partner violence program

The example is a reminder that the right referral depends on what the person needs, and that officers should know their local services before they need them. Brooks suggests that every new officer spend a shift visiting the local shelter, the sexual assault centre and the victim services office. 'You will make better referrals if you have met the people you are referring to.'

When the abuser is a police officer

Desjardins ends the lesson with a subject that police services have often avoided. Police officers commit intimate partner violence too, and their victims face unique barriers: the abuser knows the system, knows the officers who will respond, may have access to service weapons and databases, and may be believed over the victim. Victims may fear that reporting will lead colleagues to protect the officer or will cost the family its income. Police leaders and organizations, including the International Association of Chiefs of Police, which published a model policy on police-perpetrated domestic violence in 2003, have called for clear policies: calls involving officers must be handled like any other, by supervisors from another unit where possible; weapons must be addressed immediately; investigations must be independent; and victims must be given an advocate outside the police service. In Ontario, serious cases may involve the Special Investigations Unit or another service, and misconduct is addressed under the Community Safety and Policing Act, 2019. 'The test of whether a service takes this seriously,' Desjardins says, 'is what it does when the suspect wears its uniform.'