Queen’s LLM student Jo-Ellen Worden (NSc’13, MDEM’17), is conducting one of Canada’s first empirical studies examining systemic responses to domestic violence by law enforcement officers. She’s aiming to “contribute to the development and implementation of legislative reforms and local programs that assist victims of this very specialized type of violence.” (Photo by Garrett Elliott)
Queen’s LLM student Jo-Ellen Worden (NSc’13, MDEM’17), is conducting one of Canada’s first empirical studies examining systemic responses to domestic violence by law enforcement officers. She’s aiming to “contribute to the development and implementation of legislative reforms and local programs that assist victims of this very specialized type of violence.” (Photo by Garrett Elliott)

Jo-Ellen Worden (NSc’13), is a Registered Nurse, former psychotherapist and holder of a Master of Disaster & Emergency Management degree. Now at Queen’s Law, she has a clear goal for her LLM research: to help victims who are being abused by the very people responsible for protecting them. Bringing an interdisciplinary approach to a multi-dimensional threat, her master’s studies on “Law Enforcement Officer-Involved Domestic Violence” call for reforms to address a gap in services and supports for vulnerable Canadians. 

Jo-Ellen Worden spoke to Queen’s Law Reports about the focus of her dissertation and the ways she is sharing her highly specialized expertise. 

How did you develop your expertise in domestic violence by law enforcement officers?

As a disaster relief and humanitarian aid Registered Nurse and retired psychotherapist, I became sensitized to “law enforcement officer-involved domestic violence” in areas of armed conflict, as well as at home here in Canada, and to the question of how these victims could be helped. For more than a decade, I reached out to countless services and institutions – including the Attorney General’s Office, Ontario premiers, MPs, MPPs, local law enforcement, and even the Prime Minister’s Office – but could find no comprehensive services and supports anywhere in Canada to assist victims of this very specialized form of family violence. I was even cautioned to accept, “…if the assailant is a police officer, nothing is going to be done about it.”  This astounded me, and I refused to accept this so called “truth.”  

Tell us about your research.

The term “law enforcement officer-involved domestic violence" (OIDV) refers to the intimate partner violence that occurs within families where the perpetrator of the violence is a police officer. The dimensions of the threat that OIDV poses to the family members and colleagues of abusive police officers have loomed large in Canada for well over half a century. For thousands of women and children in Canada, police family violence is a startlingly real, hushed epidemic. Unlike traditional forms of domestic violence, OIDV victims cannot easily reach out to police for help due to the nature of police culture. 

Sadly, Canadian systemic responses to police family violence continue to remain in their infancy and improving the lives of victims requires addressing the continuum of constraints that obstruct them from obtaining the assistance they require. As such, I am conducting one of Canada’s first empirical studies that examines systemic responses to OIDV in Ontario.

I am examining OIDV from two perspectives. Firstly, I am interviewing victims in order to ascertain their lived experiences. Concurrently, I am canvassing over 26,000 Ontario police officers in order to illuminate their understandings of the OIDV phenomenon, and examine systemic policing and judicial policy instruments currently held by Ontario law enforcement agencies. My hope is to contribute to the development and implementation of legislative reforms and local programs that assist victims of this very specialized type of domestic violence.

Tell us about your experience participating in the Government of Canada’s public consultations on its proposed regulatory framework for harassment and violence. How were you able to apply your expertise on the topic? Has this experience had an impact on your work?

The events of recent years have illuminated serious systemic insufficiencies and abuses that exist within the ranks of some of Canada’s largest law enforcement agencies and other government-regulated workplaces with respect to sexual violence and harassment. Recently, the Government of Canada engaged a public consultation process in which it asked the public to review a proposed regulatory framework for addressing harassment and violence in federally regulated workplaces. These include the RCMP and the Parliamentary Protective Service work environments. As part of the consultation process, I reviewed the proposal and made recommendations regarding strategies for addressing harassment and violence within Canada’s federal police services with a view toward formally raising awareness to ministerial levels to gaps in the proposed framework, and illuminate other systemic insufficiencies and challenges within Canada’s federal police services with respect to OIDV. I also presented viable recommendations for enhancing and strengthening the framework.   

Ensuring my thesis research maintains a strong knowledge translation approach increases the likelihood of broad dissemination to legal and healthcare communities. For example, my participation in the public consultations impressed upon me to the necessity to clearly identify, in my thesis, the pressing need to bridge the gap between occurrences of police family violence and informed incident management strategies that include mitigation, preparedness, response, and legal and health resolution initiatives.

Tell us about your experience as a finalist in the Queen’s 2018 “3 Minute Thesis” competition?

Participating as a finalist in that competition was an incredibly rewarding experience. The competition served as a training vehicle to present my research and findings in a clear, concise, impact-driven manner. It provided exciting learning opportunities alongside highly intelligent articulate groundbreakers, game-changers, and future legislative reformers. It was my hope that participation in the 3MT competition would also serve to raise the profile of OIDV to national levels and inspire other Canadian researchers to examine, and help eradicate, Canadian occurrences of this highly lethal form of domestic violence.

Why did you choose Queen’s Law for your LLM studies?

As a Queen’s BNSc graduate, I have a heartfelt affinity and fondness for Queen’s. The Queen’s LLM program offered me an opportunity to study with some of Canada’s leading scholars, researchers and practitioners in the field of law and its interdisciplinary partners. The program acknowledges the value of an interdisciplinary approach to numerous areas of legal research. Its rich research community offered opportunities for me as a nurse to work alongside many of the world’s leaders and experts in law and health while providing opportunities for me to make valuable contributions to the university and my community.  

My thesis on law enforcement officer-involved domestic violence involves an understandably sensitive area of research. Queen’s Law provided me with a unique and informed interdisciplinary environment in which to conduct my thesis research. Studying at Queen’s has also provided me with the opportunity to work with my thesis supervisor, family law professor Nicholas Bala (Law’77), an internationally renowned expert on family law  and domestic violence, for which I am profoundly privileged and grateful.

Where are you from? What do you enjoy doing outside your academic studies?

I was born and raised in Toronto in a military and law enforcement family. Outside of academic pursuits, I volunteer as an international disaster relief and humanitarian aid Registered Nurse. Since 2003, I have been a member of a Canadian International Medical Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) and served all over the world on numerous DART deployments in areas of armed conflict and responding to disasters of public health importance. This is my passion!