Tamil Nadu Police Training Initiatives in
Dealing with Domestic Dispute/Violence Petitions/Cases

K. Radhakrishnan, IPS
Inspector-General of Police
Tamil Nadu

The first AWPS was opened in the Thousand Lights area in central Chennai on April 13, 1992. It was considered a success in handling crimes against women and the Government sanctioned the opening of AWPSs throughout Tamil Nadu. These were developed rapidly and there are now 195 in total. Each stations is headed a Woman Inspector who reports to the Commissioner or Assistant Commissioner of the police. Under the Inspector there are, in most units, two Sub-Inspectors, three Head Constables and 10 Constables.

Some of the units are located in separate buildings and some are located within the premises of general police stations. Staffed exclusively by women, they deal mainly with Indian Penal Code and Special Act cases involving crimes against women particularly violence related to problems over dowries. Such problems arise when promises made by the wife's family are not kept, or when the husband and his family try to extort additional payments or goods. Dowry related disputes sometimes lead to the wife's murder or to her suicide (Khan, and Ray 1984; Paul,1986; Gautam and Trivedi, 1987; Devi Prasad, 1990; Oldenburg, 1993; Natarajan 1995, Stone and James, 1997; Roy, 1999; Vindhya, 2000) In addition, the units deal with family disputes, marital problems, false promises of marriage, sexual assaults or rape, kidnapping, and others (Natarajan, 1996a).

Once a complaint is filed at the station, the women officers take charge of the enquiry/ investigation. The objective is usually to achieve reconciliation between the parties without going to court.
For example, if the issue concerns a quarrel between husband and wife, or daughter-in-law and parentsin-law, the police officer in charge will bring the parties to the station and conduct inquiries. Several counseling sessions may take place before agreement is reached. 
The AWPSs have become well known locally and increasing numbers of women now feel confident in approaching the units for help with their problems. According to a recent study of the 10,508 cases on domestic violence cases reported in three years (1999-2001) in three police stations in Chennai, 20% of the cases reported to police were primarily related to dowry disputes. Most of the other cases seem to involve minor disputes among family members and only a few cases involve extreme violence
where a criminal investigation was needed, involving the filing of an FIR, or First Information Report. Using detailed data from 474 case records and interviews with 60 dowry victims that sought help from the AWPSs, the study revealed that many cases were successfully resolved and violence was frequently reduced.
Despite the apparent success of the AWPSs in dealing with dowry victims, the study (1996a and 1996b, 2001, 2002, 2003) over the years noted that women police officers had:

1. Insufficient training in dispute resolution: The women officers in the AWPSs had received too little training in resolving domestic disputes and in dealing with serious violence. It was also noticed that women police were solving the cases by using their personal knowledge of “panchayat” system. They lacked professional understanding of dispute resolution techniques and how they were used.

2. Insufficient training in interviewing and counseling: When dealing with petitioners, women police are in effect performing a social work interviewing and counseling function, for which most have not been trained. They must rely instead on patience, sympathy and what they learn on the job. In many units, support from social workers or psychologists is very limited.

3. Insufficient training in record keeping and data management: Records on the numbers of women seeking assistance from the units and the problems that they bring with them are poorly maintained. Station logs are hand-written in bound notebooks and are not up-to-date. Only when superiors make inspection visits are records produced. The fact that complaints are filed in a haphazard manner makes it difficult for inspection teams to make any appraisal of the work of the units. Given the huge volume of petitioners, training was also needed in the systematic recording of information, such as demographics of complainants, the nature and extent of the problems, etc.

4. An excessive workload and shortage of staff, exacerbated by the complexity of the cases and the women officer's lack of training, which makes it difficult for them to make decisions about the best way to proceed. In addition, they are being called upon to perform a wider range of duties than before. These demands on the women police mean that they frequently cannot give the necessary attention to women petitioning for help with their problems. They cannot keep all the petitioners information in memory when they come back from other duties. In sum, it was clear that training for women police officers was needed in (1) dispute resolution, (2) interview techniques, and (3) data entry and data management. It was hoped that meeting these needs would help the women officers to handle their cases efficiently and execute their duties effectively. It was also recognized that women officers, especially those in the lower ranks, cannot leave
their stations for a semester term to attend the training sessions that are conducted in the state capital. In the midst of their other duties, they also cannot attend regular college courses that are geared to dispute resolution and data management. His submission outlined a scheme to use new web-based technology to deliver the necessary training to the officers in AWPSs. Specifically he requested funds for a pilot project to provide training for 30 women police officers in dispute resolution, interview techniques and data management. The project was successful in attracting one of the four awards of £10,000 awarded in 2002. This enabled the pilot training program to be launched in September 2002, for a total of 30 women officers from 3 All-Women Police Stations located in metropolitan cities. In this paper, the training program, involving both online and direct contact classes, designed to deal with domestic disputes/violence, is described. 

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