Dr. Myrna Dawson, director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence, discussed why some are hesitant to report intimate partner violence to the police with The Globe and Mail.  

Dawson critiqued the way police handle instances of intimate partner violence, pointing out the opportunity law enforcement has to raise awareness about the issue for the greater public.  

“When they continue to refer to these deaths as ‘domestics,’ or say the public is not at risk, the problem is individualized and made invisible,” she said. 

A professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Dawson researches violence and society, violence against women and girls, homicide, violence prevention, public policy, and criminal justice. She is the director of the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability (CFOJA), a group focused on understanding the causes and consequences of femicide.