Chicago Police to Try Questionnaire in Domestic Violence Cases - Chicago Tribune
Under the trial program announced Thursday, officers in the Shakespeare District in the Humboldt Park and Logan Square neighborhoods will try to figure out whether particular households are at “elevated risk” for repeated, increasingly serious incidents of domestic violence.
They will do so by asking the victim a series of questions, including whether the offender has ever threatened to use a weapon against her or her children, threatened to kill them, or prevented them from leaving the house, seeking assistance or calling police.
If the officers, who officials said will receive special training on how to assess the situation, determine it is high risk, they will refer the household to the state’s attorney’s targeted abuser call unit. The unit prioritizes prosecutions against certain defendants, assigning such cases to more senior prosecutors and giving them more supervisory reviews.
Officers also will put the victim in touch with social service agencies that can offer counseling and other help. Mayor Rahm Emanuel said he hopes the questionnaire will be standard procedure by the end of the summer for all police officers responding to domestic violence incidents in Chicago.
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