When a domestic abuser is a police officer
Domestic violence is widespread. But how much is perpetrated by members of Portugal’s police forces? What happens when the abuser is part of the same system that is supposed to protect the victim? How many of those convicted are removed from the country’s police forces, the PSP (the Polícia de Segurança Pública, or Public Security Police, Portugal’s civil force) or the GNR (the Guarda Nacional Republicana, the National Republican Guard, its military-status police)? What has been done, and what remains to be done, to effectively combat domestic violence, the most frequently reported crime in the country?
I
Officers convicted of domestic violence continue in active service
Of the 495 internal disciplinary proceedings for domestic violence against members of Portugal’s police forces in the last five years, nearly a hundred are currently unresolved. To date, only one in every hundred officers accused has been prevented from returning to active duty.
Although not a major topic of discussion in Portugal, every now and then a domestic violence case makes it into the newspapers. How much of such violence is perpetrated by members of the country’s police forces? What are the consequences for officers who vow to protect the country’s internal security, and the rights of its citizens? Time, and journalistic determination, has revealed some of the answers, which we share here in five steps.
Initially, the PSP and GNR told us they were unaware how many complaints involving their officers had been made, as domestic violence statistics focus on age, gender, and degree of kinship, not on profession. For the same reason, Portugal’s Attorney General's Office was unable to say how many police officers had been formally charged, tried, and convicted of this crime. The General Directorate for Reintegration and Prisons faces similar difficulties in providing statistics on electronic monitoring and prison and community-based sentences for officers. It could only report that, at the end of the year, four members of the police had been imprisoned for domestic violence in the Évora Prison, which is exclusively for those who currently work or have worked in the security forces or services, or who require special protection.
1 One hundred complaints per year
Portugal’s Public Prosecutor's Office is required to notify the Inspectorate-General of Home Affairs every time proceedings are initiated in which a member of the PSP and GNR is a defendant. However, the prosecutor in charge of the investigation does not always do so.
When analyzing the 20 years of activity reports available on the Inspectorate-General’s website, we found domestic violence was combined with "other actualities" until 2019, after which it became an independent category, cross-referencing the subjects of the complaints with the institutions where they work. When the PSP and GNR are added together, there were 196 cases in five years.
[Chart 1. Inspectorate-General of Home Affairs-registered disciplinary proceedings for domestic violence involving PSP and GNR officers]
What was the outcome of such complaints? “The complaint is registered as an administrative process and the General Command of the GNR and the National Directorate of the PSP are informed,” explained Sónia Marinho, who works in the office of Pedro Figueiredo, the Inspectorate-General. “In administrative processes, disciplinary proceedings currently in progress within the security forces are monitored.”
First item of evidence: domestic violence, the most frequently reported crime against the person in Portugal, is not handled by the institution that polices the police. According to Sónia Marinho, “no records are kept of the opening of disciplinary proceedings relating to domestic violence.”
When the accused is a member of the police, the Public Prosecutor's Office should also report complaints to the National Directorate of the PSP and the General Command of the GNR. This does not always happen, however, with the task sometimes left to the individuals involved. Although there is no complete record of reports of domestic violence, the number of cases opened is an indicator.
At PÚBLICO’s request, the PSP reported that 223 disciplinary proceedings were initiated between 2019 and 2023, while the GNR reported a total of 272, giving, overall, 495 proceedings in five years, an average of 99 per year, or almost two per week.
While an acquittal or conviction in criminal proceedings does not mean an identical decision will be given in disciplinary proceedings, in both the PSP and the GNR it is common for disciplinary proceedings to be suspended until criminal proceedings are concluded. As a result, 94 of those proceedings (55 from the PSP and 39 from the GNR) are still pending.
[Chart 2 Disciplinary proceedings for domestic violence initiated in the PSP and GNR, by year, from 2019 to 2023]
Major Andreia Lopes, head of the Investigation and Victim Support Department of the GNR’s Criminal Investigation Unit, is not surprised by the number of cases. Domestic violence is widespread, she says, and can happen anywhere, regardless of age, ethnicity, social class, or profession. The aggressor can be a police officer, lawyer, court official, prosecutor, or judge. “The aggressor can be anyone. I am sitting here, and I could be a perpetrator of domestic violence.” Or a victim, for there are also victims of domestic violence in the PSP and the GNR, and even cases where both victim and aggressor wear police uniforms.
2 Victims reluctant to file a complaint
Studies carried out in other countries indicate that the incidence of domestic violence is even higher in the families of police officers. Tatiana Moura, from the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra, highlights the profiles of candidates joining the police, the militarized training, the violence that many face in their daily work, the stress this causes, and the lack of regular psychosocial support. "There is a normalization of violence that can permeate life, and which can move from the professional to the private sphere," she says.
Such victims of domestic violence tend to have difficulty filing a complaint or even asking for help. Carla Melo, from the Service for the Promotion of Gender Equality and Opportunities in the municipal district of Póvoa do Lenhoso, describes several reasons for this, including the perpetrator’s status, their authority, the knowledge they have of the system, and the possession of firearms. “Domestic violence is fundamentally about power relations. An aggressor may coerce a victim and convince her no one will believe her,” she says.
Whatever the aggressor's job, much domestic violence never comes to the attention of the authorities. Beyond the fear of reprisals against them or their loved ones, victims may be unaware of their rights, feel ashamed, have little confidence in the system's ability to investigate the facts and punish the perpetrator, and so feel ambivalent about filing charges.
Ambivalence "is one of the biggest factors" behind silence, explains Sofia Neves, a professor at the University of Maia and an expert in the field. "There is an emotional connection that often leads to an attempt to justify the aggressor’s behavior. Many victims say: 'I care about him, I just want him to stop being violent.'"
Nor is it uncommon for the victim to adopt a protective attitude. "They fear the social repercussions the aggressor himself may suffer," says Carla Melo. "If the aggressor is a member of the PSP or the GNR, the victim knows this could result in disciplinary proceedings against him, which can have consequences for his children. The family may lose some of their livelihood."
"These issues are even more problematic in rural areas," adds Sofia Neves, founder of the Plano i Association. “Everyone knows each other. Sometimes, the abusers hold positions of authority, which makes everything even more difficult.” She gives an example of a woman married to the highest-ranking officer in the GNR station where she lived, who never dared to file a complaint.
So many doubts can pass through a victim's head when her abuser is part of the system that should protect her. Will the police take her word seriously? Will they gather evidence diligently? What guarantees of confidentiality will they give her? Is there a risk they will tell the abuser, putting her in greater danger?
“Many victims fear the investigation will be carried out by colleagues or friends of the perpetrator,” says Sofia Neves, who believes such fears are justified. Studies in other countries reveal that the hypothesis of an aggressor’s colleagues ‘closing ranks’ is not unfounded. “Although this is a public offense, there are many ways to try to dissuade victims.”
3 What should happen within the system
In Portugal, reports of domestic violence can be made by anyone, at any PSP, GNR or Criminal Investigation Police station, or Public Prosecutor's office. Reports can be made orally, in writing (on paper, by email), or through the electronic complaint system.
“The autonomy of the investigation lies with the Public Prosecutor’s Office,” explains Sub-Superintendent Hugo Guinote, head of the Criminal Prevention, Community Policing, Special Programs and Human Rights Division of the PSP. “It can delegate to the PSP, which happens, or it can decide that the investigation should be passed on to another criminal police body, which can also happen,” he says. If a case involving a PSP officer is delegated to the PSP, “it will not usually be handled at the same police station.”
Guinote goes on to explain that those who carry out such tasks are criminal investigation units, who generally have teams specialized in domestic violence. And that the cases are treated with extra confidentiality when the accused is a police officer. “The rule is that the procedural documents are hidden from the system, preventing any other officer from gaining access, other than the superior investigating officer who has to oversee the preparation of the file.”
Such cases are also handled with greater caution in the GNR. “Whenever there are military police personnel or other members of the security forces involved, the case is handled by the Specific Victim Support Investigation Unit,” says Andreia Lopes. “It’s a way to guarantee impartial treatment for all victims.”
Guinote is reluctant to believe that, in today’s Portugal, "with the specific condemnation that exists regarding the crime of domestic violence," the protectionism identified in studies persists. There should be no confusion between loyalty and complicity, he argues, pointing out that "according to the Penal Code” the latter “is punishable as a crime." But who knows? No one has ever collected data on the matter.
Both Guinote and Lopes point out that in Portugal, no officer has their own assigned patrol car, as happens in other countries. Rather, patrols are conducted in pairs. And GNR officers are not supposed to take their service weapon home. Reading the verdicts of the country’s higher courts available in the database of the Institute of Financial Management and Infrastructures of Justice, however, it is not hard to see how any rule can be got around. All you need to do is cross-reference "domestic violence" with "service weapon".
The court in Faro, for example, found that an officer had used his role to control the victim. “When on duty, he would sometimes use his patrols to go past her home to see if she was there, or he would phone her to make sure where she was, or even ask her to stop by the police station when she left work,” reads the ruling of the Évora Court of Appeal, dated February 5, 2019, rejecting the appeal. On one occasion the perpetrator went to the supermarket where the victim worked, in his uniform, to demand to know why she hadn't answered his calls.
It was as though he was untouchable. "One day I’ll throw you off the balcony and say you jumped," he threatened. He assaulted her in front of her son, her stepdaughter, and her grandmother. He even assaulted her in the hallway of the shopping mall where she worked, pointing his service weapon at her head. "You’ll be sorry if you leave me," he told her. At one point, he started carrying a telescopic baton, a tear gas canister, and a stun gun in his car.
He denied all the accusations, but was convicted of domestic violence, rape, and possession of a prohibited weapon, and sentenced to five years in prison, suspended for the same period. He was also ordered to attend a domestic violence prevention course, pay compensation to the victim, and stay away from her for four years.
The conviction became final in 2019, and the corresponding internal disciplinary process resulted in the application of a penalty of compulsory retirement decreed by the Minister of Home Affairs on August 17, 2020.
4 One in every hundred accused is expelled from the force
Most disciplinary proceedings are dismissed, however. Adding together the data sent by the two police forces, out of a total of 401 completed cases, there were 59 convictions, which included three written warnings, 45 suspensions, and five dismissals or compulsory retirements. Several victim support specialists interviewed by PÚBLICO associate internal penalties of expulsion with criminal sentences exceeding three years.
[Chart 3: Disciplinary processes within the PSP and GNR between 2019 and 2023 that resulted in convictions]
Hugo Guinote says the numbers should be treated with caution. “I’d suggest a quantitative assessment should be avoided. To make a qualitative assessment, you have to go case by case, you have to review the whole process and compare the internal disciplinary measure with the measure implemented by the court, to see if there is a mismatch, because there might not be.”
Andreia Lopes highlights the domestic violence monitoring reports: between 2015 and 2021, 78.3% of domestic violence investigations were dismissed, almost always due to a lack of evidence; 16.9% resulted in charges and 4.8% in the provisional suspension of proceedings [a legal mechanism allowing the prosecutor to pause proceedings for up to five years provided the defendant follows certain injunctions or rules of conduct]. Of cases that reached the sentencing stage, 59% resulted in convictions, almost always with suspended sentences. Lopes considers it important to establish this parallel in order to understand what is commonly achieved in matters of domestic violence. “It is difficult to collect evidence in this type of crime.”
5 Courts that relegate crimes to private affairs
The suspensions proposed by the PSP and GNR and approved by the institutions’ supervisory bodies may still be overturned. Analysis of cases reaching the higher courts gives an insight into current practices and reveals how some judges continue to relegate domestic violence to the private sphere.
One example is the PSP officer who filed an injunction against the Ministry of Home Affairs to suspend a disciplinary sanction of compulsory retirement, alleging that it was "disproportionate, unfair, and unjust." The officer argued he was already working "in the logistics section, and had no contact with the public"; that "he was not sentenced in criminal proceedings to a term exceeding three years"; and that the minister “made completely different decisions in analogous situations, giving officers also convicted in domestic violence cases disciplinary sanctions of 60 and 120 days of suspension.”
The Tax and Public Administration Court of Porto disagreed, but the officer appealed again. And, on April 21, 2023, the Central Administrative Court of the North ruled in his favor. "It is not clear how the established facts [...] irreversibly compromise the performance of duties," the decision stated. “These are personal matters, occurring within the family, and which have no objective connection whatsoever with the exercise of police functions,” ruled the judges Rogério Martins, Luís Migueis Garcia, and Conceição Silvestre, with only the latter dissenting. “The accused did not use his weapon or any object related to the exercise of his duties to assault his ex-wife, nor did he use or invoke his powers of authority to threaten or coerce the victim.”
On October 4, 2023, meanwhile, the same court ruled in favor of an officer who beat his wife to death with a stick. "The disciplinary sanction of dismissal, served on a PSP officer for domestic violence, for the commission of a crime of serious bodily harm, for which he was convicted in criminal proceedings, but without any objective connection to his duties, is manifestly disproportionate."
In 2007 the Court of Vila Franca de Xira had sentenced the officer to six years in prison for aggravated assault resulting in death. After an appeal, which was unsuccessful, the disciplinary process resulted in his dismissal. The PSP considered that through his conduct the officer had "gravely violated his professional duties, being damaging and offensive to the image of the PSP."
The Tax and Public Administration Court of Mirandela refused to declare the disciplinary sanction null and void, but the Central Administrative Court of the North disagreed: "It is not clear how the established facts […] irreversibly compromise the performance of duties, a necessary requirement, in addition to the criminal framework of the crime or the penalty applied to the specific case, for the application of a disciplinary sanction of expulsion," the court reiterated.
Judges Rogério Martins, Isabel Costa, and Fernanda Brandão stated that "it does not appear in the records that the accused used his service weapon (or any other weapon) nor any object related to the performance of his duties to assault his ex-wife, nor did he use or invoke powers of authority to threaten or coerce the victim." They also said that "there is no possibility of excessive or criminal use of physical force in the performance" of his duties, given that he was in the pre-retirement phase of his career.
What confidence can a citizen have in a police officer convicted of domestic violence? “It’s a subject that deserves deeper reflection, which hasn’t yet been carried out, and eventually, some academic research will also be required,” acknowledges Guinote. When questioned about the prevailing silence on the subject, Andreia Lopes admits to a need for “greater institutional openness to debate the issue.”
Tatiana Moura believes "there is a need for a working group to study domestic violence to understand which jobs generate stress, which can then be brought home and translated into violence," but adds that the provision of consistent psychosocial support for police officers is vital. Sofia Neves also calls for academic studies with specific focuses, while arguing that "there must be very clear codes of conduct and action flowcharts to effectively sanction those who, in the exercise of public functions, commit a crime as serious as domestic violence."
II
Madalena feels both anger and pity for her GNR officer ex-husband.
Shortly before being charged with domestic violence, the officer had requested a transfer to the kitchens. By agreeing to certain obligations, he avoided trial, but was suspended from duty for 18 months.
There seems to be an element of surprise to the pain that Madalena* is still trying to process. “I did everything for my children. Maybe I got it wrong. I should have left home sooner. I think they’re happy now,” she says.
An abuser can be a highly effective manipulator. Even today, despite the shock, the violence she suffered doesn't represent how Madalena likes to think of her ex-husband. "Even after everything I've been through, I think I still like him,” she reflects.
She goes on to list what she sees as his many qualities. “He cooked for us. Anything we asked for, he could provide. He gave us surprises. Sometimes he took us on trips. We had a wonderful life. We had cars. We had a house. We had a farm. We had everything. And it all came to an end …”
Searching for answers, she thinks about his background. “When we started dating, he wasn’t speaking to his father. He told me that his father always treated him badly. I don’t know whether he hit him, or whether he ignored him. I told him: ‘Look, I hope you never do that to your children.’ But … he did.”
Could the explanation lie in the personality of the abuser, the intergenerational transmission of violence, the direct and indirect exposure to violent situations, the dominant male culture, or excessive alcohol consumption? Madalena places more emphasis on this last hypothesis.
Excesses
He hadn't yet joined the GNR when they got married. “One day I came home and there was a note that said: ‘I went to Lisbon to apply for the GNR, because today is the last day.’ He registered, took the course, passed, and was called up.”
Madalena quit her job to so she could follow him wherever he was posted.
For the first three years, she looked after the house and their son, who had just been born. “And life was going well. We used to come here once a month, staying at my parents' house because we didn't have a house of our own yet.” As soon as he was placed in the area, they settled down. They bought a house and had another child.
But over time, her husband acquired other habits. “He made a lot of friends. He would come home late. Some days, he would make dinner, but other times he’d go to a motorbike rally. He didn't go with us to my mother's as much anymore. We stopped sleeping there. We only visited on Sundays.”
And those Sundays could be painful. “When he drank, I would spend three or four hours in the car with my children, waiting for him, while he was in the café with his friends. After dinner, instead of going straight from my parents' house to our house, he would stop off at the café.”
– Come on! – I’d say to him.
– Hold on! – he’d answer.
– Your kids have school tomorrow, remember.
– They’ll get used to it.
Madalena despaired as she watched her children falling asleep in the back seat. “We’d get home at one, two, three, four in the morning. On Monday mornings, the kids had to get up early. That’s how it was. But it was only when he’d had a drink. Otherwise, he’d go straight home.”
“After a drink,” the trips back home were invariably tense. “If we started talking about anything, there would be an argument. Sometimes we wouldn’t even talk. We’d just stay silent.” But “dry” everything was fine.
Son a victim too
He didn’t usually beat her. "He hit me once and apologized. He slapped me. My son was only little and witnessed it all." But the verbal aggression was constant. "Sometimes he insulted me verbally. In fact he always insulted me verbally. 'You bitch!' 'You piece of shit!' Things like that. I don't even want to think about it."
Their son, though, was often beaten. "If he got a bad grade, he’d hit him immediately." Madalena went to talk to the teachers. Whenever they gave him a test, the boy would get nervous. Expecting punishment from his father, he’d freeze. "They made him feel more comfortable and he improved a little."
She remembers trying to reason with her then-husband, disguising her protest as submission. “We couldn’t go anywhere because he’d immediately say: ‘If you’re not happy, move out.’ And so I let him continue.” She even spoke to her mother-in-law. “I felt sorry for the boy,” she says, “but she’d just tell me: ‘Oh, leave it be. It’ll pass.’”
But he never hit his daughter – with her, he "was a sweetheart", even though the girl didn't make things easy with her grades either. "She was scared too, because her brother had told her all the stories." Until the day everything changed.
Two punches
That Saturday, Madalena went to visit her father, who was in a residential care facility for the elderly, and then went to her mother's house with her daughter. Her son, who now lived with his girlfriend, wasn't there.
Her husband was going to take part in a motorcycle rally. He was supposed to join his family in the afternoon, but only showed up at night. The family had already eaten dinner when he came into his mother-in-law's house. "My daughter was washing the dishes, he was sitting at the table, and I went out into the street with my aunt so I wouldn't have to listen to him."
He wanted a glass of chilled wine, but there wasn’t any, and so he started to complain about the temperature of the wine he was given. Tired of his moaning, his daughter retorted: "If you don't want the wine, don't drink it; eat your dinner." Suddenly, Madalena heard her scream. "Mama, he's hitting me!"
Madalena and her aunt rushed into the kitchen. “‘She’s the one who hit me!’, he said. And my mother said, ‘I’m sorry, but she didn’t hit you, you hit her, you punched her twice.’ He called my mother all sorts of names. I tried to defend them both. He hit me, punched me a number of times. But he told, and still tells, everyone we were the ones who hit him.”
He wouldn't calm down, and demanded the keys to the van. When Madalena refused to give them to him, he punched the table and hit a soft cheese, splattering it everywhere. "He called me and my daughter all sorts of names.”
Only after cleaning the kitchen did Madalena and her daughter get in the van with him to go home. “He got home, took all the car keys and went to the dance until three in the morning. He went around telling everyone that his daughter tore his shirt, but in the pictures you can see it’s not torn, it’s dirty. My daughter didn’t turn against him.”
On Sunday, he got up, took a shower, and dressed smartly. When he came into the kitchen, his son, who had found out what had happened, was waiting for him. “He didn’t even greet him. My son only said: ‘Dad, I came here to talk to you.’ He replied: ‘No. I’m going to mass now.’ And he went to mass. He takes communion, and prays with his eyes closed. God is with him. And my son hasn’t spoken to his father since that day.”
That Saturday, her daughter told Madalena: “You’re going to ask for a divorce.” Her son had said the same thing years before, when the GNR officer withdrew five thousand euros from their joint account without saying why, and insulted Madalena when she questioned him. “‘Oh mama, leave him,’ my son said. ‘Why should you stay with him? I already have my own life. I help my sister. You don’t need him for anything.’” But Madalena was reluctant. “When it came down to it, I didn’t want a divorce.”
The charges
The arguments had become as frequent as the excessive drinking. “I’d go on holidays when I didn’t want to. Things would be going well, but then, if he had one too many drinks, we'd argue. There was always something. Luckily, I didn't pay any attention and kept quiet about almost everything.”
That Saturday at her mother's house he’d gone too far. She went to her mother-in-law's house to tell her. “She almost hit me. ‘Divorce? No way. I always took beatings and I'm still here. Have you ever even ended up in the hospital?’ She said this in front of my daughter. And then she argued with her all the way to the car: ‘Don't let her get divorced. If they get divorced, I don't want anything to do with her anymore. If they get divorced, I'll disinherit you.’”
Another month passed at home. “We didn’t speak. I slept with my daughter. I wouldn’t go in my son’s room, even though it was empty. He slept alone. My daughter and I ate together. I always thought he would apologize to her, even if he wouldn’t apologize to me, but he didn’t.”
One night, they received a call from Madalena’s parents’ house to say her father had died. “I was crying in my room when he got home. He didn't come to see what had happened. He didn't want to know. He went straight to bed.” Madalena got up early. “I went to get clothes for the funeral from my room. He stayed in bed. He didn't say a word. I left, and stayed at my mother's that night. He didn't come. He only showed up at the funeral. He didn't speak to anyone.”
Before the requiem mass seven days after her father’s death, he left Madalena a voice message. She only noticed it at dinnertime. “It was terrifying. He said he’d had a vision of hell, and our children were there. I was there. It said something like: ‘Our daughter hit me and instead of taking my side, you took her side.’ He didn’t say he hit me. He didn’t say he hit his daughter. He said his daughter had hit him.”
Her son reacted immediately: “Mum, you’re going to file a complaint. You’re not going home anymore. There’s something not right with him.” Madalena agreed that she wouldn’t go home that night. The next day, first thing in the morning, she went to file a complaint, not with the GNR, but with the PSP. The family only returned home, escorted by PSP officers, to collect some belongings. “We stayed at my mother’s for a week. Then, as I had to work in the city, we stayed with a friend for two months until we could rent a house. It was hard because he left me without a penny in the bank.”
In recent years, a common tactic among those who are the target of a complaint is to file a counter-complaint. While Madalena didn't believe it would, this strategy, adopted by her husband, caused great harm. Amidst the flurry of accusations in both directions, her mother-in-law, father-in-law and sister-in-law stopped speaking to her and her children.
A temporary suspension of the process
The PSP handled the complaint, filed a report, conducted a risk assessment, and referred the case to victim support services, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office. Nor was it just Madalena’s word, or her daughter’s, her son’s, her mother’s, or her aunt’s. Discreetly, the daughter had begun filming moments when her father drank too much and started insulting them. "He was arguing, shouting, calling names. They saw everything."
As she began to realize what her married life had been like, Madalena felt deceived and disrespected. And her anger liberated her. “Some days I’m angry. Other days I feel sorry for him,” she says.
She didn't want him to be sent to prison. She wanted him to acknowledge what he’d done and try to rehabilitate himself. So she didn't hesitate when the prosecutor asked her if she wanted to go to trial, or if she wanted him to return her money, apologize, and undergo treatment. Her daughter was more hesitant. "She wanted him severely punished, but then she accepted [the provisional suspension of the charges, or in other words, the pausing of the investigation subject to certain injunctions and rules of conduct]."
As part of the disciplinary process, Madalena was questioned by the GNR. “I spoke to a young officer who wasn’t from round here. ‘I don’t know him,” he told me, “but all my colleagues speak well of him.’ To other people, he seemed like a good man. But many of his colleagues witnessed the scenes of violence. As time went on, whenever he went somewhere and drank, he’d call me names in front of everyone. ‘piece of shit’ or ‘bitch’.”
She was surprised that after everything that happened he remained a figure of authority. “That’s what annoys me the most,” she says. “He’s still doing his job. He’s still getting the same salary.” At least he wasn’t carrying a weapon. “They took his guns away, both his own and those from his job. He was lucky. Not long before, he’d been taken off street patrols. He wanted to be transferred to the kitchens. Now he works every day from nine to five. He has weekends off. He’s a GNR officer, but he’s a cook.”
It was explained to her that, unless there is a criminal conviction with a sentence of more than three years in prison, disciplinary proceedings for domestic violence tend to amount to reprimands, fines, or suspensions of varying lengths. And this time was no exception: an 18-month suspension.
She hopes time will heal, but she doesn’t feel safe. “You never know what to expect from that kind of person. When he's 'serious,' he doesn't do anything, but when he drinks, who knows. They told me he’s stopped drinking. They told me that as soon as he was summoned to court, he stopped. He knows that if he drinks too much, he loses his head. He must know. Who knows what will happen?” She asked him so many times to stop drinking. “He said it was the last thing he’d ever do. I had to leave home for him to stop drinking. If I had done that sooner, maybe things wouldn't have gotten to this point.”
* Names have been changed and locations and other details have been omitted to protect the identities of the victims.
III
PSP officer convicted of domestic violence set two cars on fire
Despite his wife’s fears he’d get off, he was given a suspended sentence and expelled from the PSP. Later, he was arrested for setting fire to the cars of a witness and a victim support worker.
The man who assaulted Amália* was trained to exert authority and control. He knew how to avoid bruises and broken bones. And he carried a Glock pistol.
Perhaps he’d always been impulsive, controlling and aggressive. Or perhaps time had exacerbated these traits. Would it have been different if he had followed another profession, or had he chosen his profession because of these characteristics? Did shift work, exposure to potentially traumatic situations, daily stress, or excessive alcohol consumption weigh on him, or are these merely excuses?
When she thinks about it, Amália sees that he shaped her entire adult life. As a teenager, she dreamt of being a nurse, picturing herself in a white coat, syringe in hand, immunizing people. “But I left school after the 12th grade,” she says. “When I should have kept on studying, I got married. He wouldn't let me do anything else.”
Once married, she moved to the city, where he began his career in the PSP aged 22. Initially, she went to work outside the home. But then she became a mother. “I never worked again. He never let me.” The domineering relationship that paralyzed her for so many years took hold.
“There was always an excuse” for Amália to remain confined to the house and her family. First, the boy was too young. Then, she was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. “I had psychomotor therapy, speech therapy, behavioral therapy.” And it isn’t always difficult to control a financially dependent person, with no support network of family or friends.
Dislike of her parents
The situation did not improve when they left the hustle and bustle of the city and settled in their quiet hometown. Her parents were the source of frequent arguments. "I don't know where his resentment towards them came from. My parents always treated him well. But it fueled a hatred.”
Amália wasn't one for going out. She visited her parents, and spoke to them often on the phone. "You don't need to call them all the time," he'd tell her. "Nobody's going to stop me from talking to my parents," she'd retort. So many arguments started like that. To avoid them, often she’d call "secretly."
He didn't just talk to her in a way that cut like a knife. Often, his violent words escalated to physical violence. Bound by family loyalty and the hope for change, Amália suffered in silence. "He would apologize, promise it wouldn't happen again, but he would always start another argument. He would call my family names, I would respond; it was just a pretext to hit me again."
As time went on, her fear grew. "A few minutes before he’d get home, I’d already be a wreck. I was so nervous. It was like having a ball of lead in my stomach. I couldn't breathe properly." He would even wake in the middle of the night and start arguments.
Nor was her son only a spectator. He was immersed in the tension, the violence. "When the boy got a bad grade, he'd tell him he'd never amount to anything in life, call him incompetent, stupid, and other names that undermined his self-esteem."
Attempts to escape
One day, Amália’s husband’s hatred for her father exploded. “It happened at home. He beat him, punched him in the head. My father was treated at the hospital, and needed 13 stitches. To this day, he says it was my father who attacked him, but then he says I attacked him too.”
That day in 2016, Amália packed her things and left home. It wasn't the first time she had done so. “I had already run away to my parents' house a few times, for days or weeks, but I always came back. Why? I think it was out of fear.”
Until her son turned 18, she believed she had to sacrifice her own life. “Because he’d already threatened me. ‘If you leave me,’ he said, ‘I’ll take the boy away from you. You’ll never have him.’ I think that’s why he didn’t want me to work. He had a job and he could have the boy. Even if it was just for revenge.”
When she left, her son was already an adult. “When I left home, I found work, and I no longer needed him financially. Whether I earned a little or a lot, it would be enough for me. I was at peace with my parents.”
Her father filed a charge of assault. Three months later, on the day he was due in court, her husband called Amália to threaten her. "If the case went ahead,” he told me, “he would kill my parents." That wasn't his only demand. "He told me to come back home. If I did, he wouldn't do anything to my parents. I was paralyzed. I only thought about protecting my parents."
She was never good at hiding her fear. It was obvious in her eyes, in her gestures. “My parents saw I was scared and dropped the complaint.” They didn’t understand, however, why she returned home. Amália even heard her brother say: ‘So she likes to be beaten. If that’s what she wants, she can have it.’ “I was criticized by the whole family,” she says, swallowing hard.
Married life became even more unbearable. “He became even more aggressive. I had already been admitted to hospital several times, always telling them lies, saying that I had fallen.”
Then came a time when the truth was harder to disguise. A doctor tried to get the truth from her. “I can’t force you to talk,” he said. “Do you really want me to believe you fell?” But eventually she gave in, even though, in cases of suspected domestic violence, doctors are free from the obligation of professional confidentiality.
On that occasion, Amália could barely walk. “He threw me to the ground and kicked me in the back. He only hit me in places that weren't visible. He tried not to hit my face.” Whenever she thought about reporting him, she was paralyzed by fear. And by shame. “I was already ashamed of having been with someone like that for so many years.” What would people think? What would people say?
The threat of a massacre
In 2018, when her parents were planning to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, he became more aggressive than ever. "What do they need a golden wedding anniversary party for, I haven’t even had have a silver one!” he said. He aimed his service weapon at her, then shifted it to one side. “He fired at the refrigerator,” Amália says.
Seemingly out of control, he threatened to kill her father. "I didn’t kill him when I kicked his head in, I’ll kill him now." He threatened to kill whoever appeared in front of him. "If there's a golden wedding anniversary, I'll go to the church or the restaurant and whoever shows up, it’ll be the end of them."
Faced with the brutality of such threats, Amália finally broke free. "It wasn't even because he pointed the gun at me. It was because he put my whole family at risk. I left home that day, and I'm still here today. With the same clothes I had on my back, even today."
She told her parents everything. Terrified, the family cancelled the party. Her son rushed home, determined to convince his father to hand over the gun. A cousin remembers hearing him say, over and over again: “Tomorrow there’ll be a massacre. Anyone who gets in my way is finished.”
Amidst the panic, someone alerted the authorities. “I don’t know who it was, but there’s a record of a call. Whoever called didn’t want to identify themselves. And the next day the police showed up at his house to take away his gun. Even so, he wouldn’t hand it over.” He only did so later, at the police station. “There was already a team ready to pick him up.”
With her husband unarmed, Amália went to file a complaint on the Monday. “It was difficult for me to go to his place of work to report it. But that day I went, and they registered the complaint. Nobody gave me suspicious looks, or looked down at me, even though he was one of them.” The case was then investigated by the GNR. “I was well treated there too.”
When she thinks about it, she realizes he didn't have a good relationship with his colleagues. "Nobody could stand up to him. If someone did, he would become enraged and immediately say they’d pay for it. And that was what I was always scared of."
He went on psychiatric leave. And Amália went into hiding, until they put him under electronic surveillance. "I spent almost three months without anyone knowing where I was." She had heard too many stories about women who file complaints, then are immediately murdered in retaliation.
Several preventive measures were imposed on him – treatment for excessive alcohol consumption, psychiatric monitoring, and restraining orders using remote monitoring devices. But as the months passed, he became less cautious. “He started coming near where I worked. He knew some dates [of events] and would show up, and they’d tell him to leave.”
He continued to deny the accusation and wouldn’t admit to any alcohol or mental health problems. At the end of 2021, he was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison, suspended for the same period, and was prohibited from contacting the victim or going near her home or workplace during the period of suspension.
He refused to accept the decision. In his mind, the roles were still reversed, and the blame lay with the other side. About a month later, in the middle of the night, he smashed the window of a vehicle driven by the victim support worker who was supporting Amália and placed an incendiary device inside. Fifteen days later, he did the same thing to the car of the cousin who’d testified against him in court.
By then he had already returned to work but wasn’t allowed to carry arms. Instead, he was carrying out administrative and support duties due to the ongoing disciplinary proceedings. A new disciplinary process began.
He continued to deny the facts. However, as he was under electronic surveillance, the Criminal Investigation Police were able to verify that he’d been at the crime scene. During a search of his home, they found a mask and a charred jacket matching the description given by an eyewitness. He was remanded in custody and sentenced to six years in prison for two counts of arson.
Amália remembers talking to her cousin about how the courts tended to give suspended sentences in domestic violence convictions. And at the end of the second trial, her cousin pointed out that her car and that of the non-profit organization that was helping her had to be set alight in order for justice to prevail,. “I feel sorry and sad about that,” she says.
The support worker who had helped her was also pursued. He sent her a friend request on Facebook, visited the restaurant district where she went several times, approached her on the street on numerous occasions, and had even asked to meet with her, under different names – when she saw it was him, she alerted the police, who asked her to meet him with him while they stayed on the line, so everyone could hear him say his ex-wife was a liar, that he was the victim, and that he'd do anything to prove it.
The justice system moved so slowly that Amália had even begun to think nothing would happen. “Isn’t anything happening?”, she asked. “Why aren’t the police doing anything? Why aren’t they punishing him in some way?”
The disciplinary process has not been forgotten. According to the PSP, Amália's ex-husband was dismissed by order of Portugal’s Minister of Home Affairs on June 22, 2022, as part of the disciplinary proceedings for domestic violence initiated in 2018. The disciplinary proceedings for arson that began in 2022 for arson have not yet been concluded.
Her ex-husband continued to protest his innocence, and his outrage was made clear in the Court of Appeal's ruling denying his appeal against his prison sentence. He considered his conviction "unjust and unwarranted", and declared that "Justice is for women. Men are always convicted."
Amália's feelings of security go no further than the prison sentence her ex-husband will serve. She fears he will continue to shift the blame, discredit her, accuse her of terrible acts, and seek revenge. "As soon as he sets foot outside prison, he'll come after me. I'll be the next victim. I know what he's capable of."
He has never telephoned his son, but he has written letters, which the boy gave her to read. The last contained the words "a hunger for revenge." "He’s dedicated himself to reading certain books in prison. He takes phrases from them, phrases that fit well or sound good, and underlines some. We put all the underlined parts together. The message was 'a revenge that leaves no trace'."
Moving city or country is an option taken by countless victims who feel unsafe. Amália has considered this, although reluctantly, as she lives with her elderly parents. “I can’t afford to pay rent on my own. Rents are extremely high. I earn very little. And, while my parents are still alive, it’s hard for me to leave them behind.” Who will guarantee their safety?
* Names have been changed and locations and other details have been omitted to protect the identities of the victims.
IV
Sónia feared the loyalty of her abuser’s colleagues, but the PSP helped her free herself from him
Criminal charges of domestic violence were provisionally suspended, but disciplinary proceedings resulted in dismissal.
Sónia* did not expect help from the only police force in her small, isolated town. "When my neighbors heard the screams, they called the police. But they didn't even show up. They were his colleagues. They were his friends. They were protecting their own."
Everything changed when a new commissioner took over. Following an event, he knocked on her office door with the chief. “You can take off your jacket,” he said. Sonia obeyed, confused. Had he listened to her neighbors? Had he noticed her broken tooth? Had he spotted she was wearing a jacket on such a hot day?
To her surprise, her mother was behind it. After talking to her sister, her aunt, and a friend, she’d put the pieces together. "He isolated her," her mother said. He wouldn't let her spend time with the family at Christmas, Easter, or on birthdays. "If I wanted to see my grandson, I had to do it in secret." She told the commissioner everything, including how she’d once gone to pick up her grandson so her daughter could go to work, and found the couple shouting and her daughter crying because he wouldn't let her leave the house.
When he saw Sonia's bruises, the commissioner reassured her. There was a way to manage the risk. Her involvement would remain hidden within the Strategic Information System, which manages the operational activity of the PSP. The investigation would be handled by the Public Prosecutor's Office, which is responsible for such cases.
The PSP took away the suspect's service weapon. And Sónia waited for a place in the victims of domestic violence support network, fearing for her safety more than ever. "He's going to find out," she thought. "He threatened to kill me so many times."
He’d once grabbed a knife and pointed it at her. He’d tried to suffocate her with a pillow. He’d pointed his service weapon at her head. All those episodes she’d shared with the authorities came back to haunt her in those days. “What will stop him from killing me now?”
And there were signs he suspected her. "Did you say something?" he repeatedly asked her. She swore she hadn't. "Then you’ll go to the police station and say it's all a lie!" And off she’d go with him to the station to declare in front of the commissioner that she’d been lying.
He even ordered her to sue the commissioner and the chief. Seeing her hesitate, he shouted: “Don’t you want to take him to court? Are you hiding something?” She swore again that she wasn’t, that she wasn’t hiding anything, while at the same time thinking: “I’m in trouble, he’ll find out, he’ll kill me.”
The commissioner put him on duty the day she went to the Forensic Medicine Centre for her examination. And he did the same the day she fled to a shelter for women and children who were victims of domestic violence, in a secret location far from their town.
Knowing he was working at the police station, Sónia packed clothes, books, and toys into a couple of suitcases, grabbed her son, and left. She got rid of her cell phone on the way, in case he used it to locate her. In her mind, their eleven years together played out on a loop.
Violence grows
At first, Sónia had felt like she was being “bombarded with love." She had grown up without much attention from her parents, who were always busy with work. She had been the target of systematic bullying at school. "He gave me what I didn't get from my parents or the world."
Soon they moved in together. And little by little, he tried to isolate her. "He said that my parents didn't like me, that I was being exploited [at work]. In the end, nobody else liked me, only him."
Over time, the cycles of violence grew shorter – increasing tension, an outburst of violence, then appeasement, reconciliation, the “honeymoon phase”. "He’d mistreat me and then come back with an apology, a massage, a bouquet of flowers, a trip, a desire to do things for me."
At first, she was hopeful things might go back to how they were. But with the repetition of the cycles of violence, everything became clearer. "I'm not going to live like this, you should move on with your life," she pleaded. "He threatened to kill me, that he’d kill my parents, that I would lose the child."
He became more violent when she took on a public-facing position at work. He couldn't stand the idea of her having so much exposure. It was as if he needed to make her invisible to maintain his position of dominance. "He wanted to lock me up and everything. Sometimes he actually did it. I had to call my secretary."
– He locked me inside the house – she’d explain.
– Do you want me to call the police?
– His colleagues? What are they going to do? If he finds out I called the police, it will be even worse.
He often accompanied her to work. When it was time for her to leave, he’d usually be waiting. “He wouldn’t even let me go to the café alone. I would go to the café with him, and if someone greeted me and didn’t greet him, he’d go crazy. ‘You’re not talking to that person anymore!’ he’d say.” He had already demanded she hand over the access codes to her mobile phone, email, and social media accounts so he could check who she was in contact with and what the nature of that contact was. He wouldn't let her attend courses, have hobbies, or even go out onto the balcony of the house they shared.
He insulted her so many times, raised his hand to her so many times, punched and slapped her so many times. And he forced her to have sex so many times. “The psychological part was the most destructive. I spent all day thinking I couldn’t make a wrong move. If I made a mistake, something serious could happen. ‘I’m going to die. I’m going to die.’”
Though their son was small he had already expressed the same fear, the same terror. As night fell, he would lie in bed with Sonia, and fall asleep clinging to her, as if his embrace could save her. Sometimes he would whisper to her: “He’s going to kill you; we’ll be sleeping here and he’ll come in and kill you.”
“Testimony For Future Memory”
As the days passed Sónia could see no escape. He distorted reality and attacked her until she began to doubt herself. “He made me think it was my fault. Everything was my fault.”
The fact that he was an authority figure, and armed, only increased her fear and distrust of the system. "Nobody will believe me," she thought. She doesn't even know how she had the courage to turn on the recorder on her cell phone, but she did, more than once. "If something happens to me, someone will hear this."
Once, as part of her work duties, Sónia took a group on a nature walk. When her husband found out, he became furious and confronted her. In the car, on the way home, he accused her of hiding the walk from him, of excluding him, of only ever being accompanied by men. And she turned on the recorder.
– Flaunting yourself, you whore! – he says.
– Walking isn't flaunting yourself. There were women [on the walk] – she replied.
– You wanted another excuse to go out, all dressed up!
– It’s a path. It has nothing to do with flaunting yourself.
– Oh, you fucking whore!
A cracking sound is heard. Sonia lets out a scream. And the insults continue for several long minutes. At one point, he threatens to "beat her head in".
There is legal precedent to support a court’s acceptance of non-consensual recordings. As recently as 2024, the Lisbon Court of Appeal ruled that a victim acted "out of a state of necessity." "You're a scumbag," "you're rotten, you're disgusting, you're not a good example for my daughters"; "I'll rip you from your vagina to your throat"; "you won't die straight away, I promise you, when I'm ripping you, you'll have convulsions," her ex-partner told her. Recording that conversation was "the only means the victim had at her disposal to 'unmask'” that PSP officer. "The protection of speech must concede to the interest of protecting the victim and the efficiency of criminal justice."
Sónia sent the recordings to her closest friend. She even discreetly called her so she could hear the violent arguments. And the friend, married to a policeman, put the call on speaker phone so her husband could hear it too.
A world turned upside down
When she fled, Sónia felt like the world was back to front. The abuser was free, and she and her son were in a "shelter that felt like a prison." "The staff would open the door to the room at 9:00 AM. ‘You can’t close the door,' they’d tell me. I was there for three months that felt like three years. I cried, my son cried, all the time. I had to enroll him in another school. He didn't want to go. He ran away."
Sónia and her son gave “testimony for future memory”, as it is known under Portuguese law, or statements for future reference. She also handed over the medical reports and recordings she had entrusted to her friend. When the court ordered the officer to leave her house and not contact her, ordering the use of remote monitoring devices, Sónia and her son returned home.
The device was always beeping. “At first, it was terrifying,” she said. In such a small town, it was impossible for him to live his life without getting close to her, which is exactly what he claimed when contesting the restraining order, as can be seen from the court proceedings. There were, however, times when he simply disobeyed the restraining order. “He even came to my house.” He told me and my son: ‘I'm going to kill myself in front of you. You destroyed my life.’”
The court insisted the paternal relationship should be maintained. But he didn't want to see his son. “Don't love me. I don't need your love. You've stopped being my son,” reads one message he sent him. And the son didn't want to see his father. Each visit filled him with terror. And the abuser continued to blame them and threaten to kill himself. Sónia spoke to the prosecutor. “This isn't something you do to a child.” The court agreed to wait a while.
Whenever he was questioned, he denied all the accusations. Even so, Sónia did not press charges. She feared it would force him to turn his threats into reality. And she didn't want him to be sent to prison; she wanted him to change. "He's the father of my child," she says. She opted for a provisional suspension of proceedings, which required him to stay away from her and attend a program for perpetrators of domestic violence.
This was not the only consequence of the repeated crime, however. According to the PSP, while awaiting the outcome of the disciplinary proceedings initiated in 2020, her husband performed administrative duties. In 2022, he was dismissed by order of the Minister of Home Affairs.
When the disciplinary process came to an end, the officer was furious. Sonia received a warning phone call: “Take what you can and go. He says he’s going to kill you and then kill himself!” Once again she put a few belongings into a suitcase and fled. “I took the cats and my son, but I didn’t leave my hometown.”
She was tired of her world being turned upside down. “This is where I grew up. This is where I work. I like my job. My son is in school. We're not going to run away again. We already ran away to the shelter. We came back because he had an electronic bracelet. They took it off.”
Faced with his threats, Sónia spoke with the lead prosecutor and an extension of the provisional suspension of the proceedings was agreed upon. Her abuser stopped threatening her. At least, her son no longer relayed his threats to Sónia, who continues to live with the boy at her parents' house.
She remains in the telephone assistance protection program for victims of domestic violence, and has a panic button. “If he gets close, I press it and it sends a GPS signal. The Portuguese Red Cross tries to call or listen to what’s happening. If they conclude that I’m in danger, they call the police.”
She also has the protection of family, friends, and neighbors. “When he sees me, he goes away. This is where I’m from, here people will confront him. People protect me. They know who he is, what he did. I'm never at ease. I'm aware of the risk, but I no longer let fear overcome me.”
She is grateful that she had family and friends who came together to alert the authorities. And that there were PSP officers who acted in a professional manner. She occasionally receives calls from the PSP and Social Reintegration services. "If it weren't for this network, perhaps I wouldn't have had the courage I needed."
Now, the former officer is getting along better with his son. They can see each other in public, and he takes him to the gym and swimming lessons. But he never attended the program for perpetrators of domestic violence. And that doesn't seem right to Sónia, who attributes his abusive behavior to a "narcissistic personality" and a "patriarchal upbringing."
Nor was this the first charge against him. His ex-wife had previously made a complaint, but had ultimately refused to cooperate with the justice system. Sónia had mistaken her silence for his innocence. Only through her own experience did she realize that, in the end, it was because his ex-partner had been "afraid."
What is there to stop him from creating another victim? “The system should help these people realize they have a problem, and help them to resolve it,” Sónia concludes. “He lost everything – his family, his job, his status. This only makes him angrier. There needs to be support to prevent him from harming past or future victims. There needs to be rehabilitation.” If he hasn't completed the course by the end of the suspension period, he can still be prosecuted.
* Names have been changed and locations and other details have been omitted to protect the identities of the victims.
V
A public crime for the last 25 years. "The progress has been remarkable, but the violence remains extremely serious."
Domestic violence is the most reported crime against the person in Portugal. In recent years, the number of cases reported annually has consistently exceeded 25,000. Year after year, the number of convictions hovers around 2,000, while the number of aggressors who actually go to prison is only around 200.
Rada* was not intimidated by the depressing domestic violence statistics — of 30,461 reports of violence in 2023, there were only 2,118 convictions, a mere 253 of which resulted in actual prison sentences; figures that do not differ greatly from previous years.
She refused to be intimidated by what she was up against: a Bulgarian domestic worker confronting a Portuguese PSP officer. “He knows a lot of people, but I’m not someone who gives up. I’d tear the world apart if I had to.”
Rada prides herself on not having given in to her fear and distrust in the system in order to protect victims and deter aggressors, especially those in uniform. "I have friends who are suffering and are afraid to speak up. I talk to them and I see how scared they are.”
Beating your wife and children was not a crime
Fifty years ago, such action would not even have been possible. Portugal’s Penal Code did not protect against paternal or marital violence. According to the Civil Code, the husband was the head of the family, and the wife and children owed him obedience.
Maria* is now 80 years old and recalls the violence with which her husband treated her from the first month of their marriage. "I only had to say a word and he’d attack."
Nor was it a priority under the country’s 1974 Carnation Revolution. The new Penal Code of 1982 criminalized the mistreatment of children and spouses, but only if proof of " selfishness and malice" could be provided.
Maria saw that nothing happened when her younger sister made a complaint about her husband. So who would listen to her, given that she was married to a police officer? And how would he react if she dared to take such a step? "He’d kill me!"
The impunity was such that the perpetrator didn't even try to hide his violent behavior from relatives or neighbors. "In a fight between husband and wife, nobody interferes," they said. And they didn't. Nobody interfered.
Running away wasn’t an option either. Where to? With what money? He had never allowed her to work. There were no government policies to support her. Victims relied solely on the goodwill of religious groups and organizations like the Alternative and Answer Women’s Union (UMAR, using the Portuguese acronym). It was in this void that the Portuguese Association for Victim Support (1990) and the Association of Women against Violence (1993) emerged.
But any such support was a long way from Maria's village. "I looked at my daughters and thought how much I needed him. Even though he was as evil as the devil, I couldn't leave him. I had to suffer it. It was my cross to bear." Later, he calmed down. And she remained, now both ill and filled with resentment.
Private violence, public crime
By joining the European Union, Portugal had to modernize. It approved the law for the protection of women who were victims of violence (1991), included psychological violence in the crime of abuse, and removed the requirement of "selfishness and wickedness" (1995). But the crime continued to be dealt with poorly or not at all by the security forces.
Many times Helena Pinto, then president of UMAR, took victims to police stations. "The woman would lean against the counter and try to tell them her husband was assaulting her. The police officer would ask what she had done to provoke him. ‘It's better to go home and talk to your husband,’ he’d say.” Helena would protest. "It’s the law. It has to be registered there. Write it down!"
Superintendent Hugo Guinote, head of the Criminal Prevention, Community Policing, Special Programs and Human Rights Division of the PSP, remembers such times. "We were discovering the emergence of a phenomenon that ran much deeper than was officially being reported.”
The nature of the crime has been much debated. In 1995, Parliament decided to make it semi-public, or dependent on a complaint from the victim. In 1998, it converted it into a conditionally public crime, meaning that the Public Prosecutor's Office could take the initiative in opening an investigation, but would only proceed if that was the victim's wish. Finally, in 2000, it was established as a public crime, meaning anyone can report it.
Making it a public crime was, in the words of Helena Pinto, "to declare that domestic violence concerns everyone." Family members, friends, neighbors, professionals from any field, everyone should be involved in fighting it.
Portugal approved its first National Policy Against Domestic Violence. It provided for the provisional suspension of proceedings [as mentioned above, a legal mechanism allowing the prosecutor to put proceedings on hold provided the defendant follows certain injunctions or rules of conduct], restraining orders, and a national support network. Civil society organizations began opening publicly funded support centers and shelters.
Nor were the police left behind. Teresa Rosmaninho (1955-2012) conceived and coordinated the Inovar project at the Ministry of Home Affairs. A psychologist by profession, specializing in Social Reintegration, she had previously worked at the Portuguese Association of Victim Support and promoted quality of care for victims.
It was now a requirement that two posters be displayed in each PSP station and each GNR post. One with a smiling couple and the words: “Domestic violence is a crime”, and the other with the “five golden rules”: “Each victim is a unique case, the victim deserves sympathy and respect, the victim should not be blamed, the victim should be informed, the victim should be properly referred.”
Training on domestic violence, the opening of victim support centers, and the creation of specialized services were also promoted. Training was delivered via video cassette, with a supplementary manual and discussions to help assimilate the lessons.
João Lázaro, the president of APAV, also recalls the efforts made at the time to attract more women into the police (they have only been admitted to the GNR since 1994), and the growing presence of this topic in officers' dissertations.
This was also the moment when the Ministry of Home Affairs began to report annual statistics. As Portugal awoke to the scale of the problem, the silence was broken: 11,162 reports of domestic violence in 2000, 12,697 in 2001, 14,071 in 2002. By 2010, the total had reached 31,235. For the first time, domestic violence surpassed simple and voluntary physical assault, becoming the most frequently reported crime against the person, a position it still holds.
A sea change
Today, in the GNR's local stations, there are investigation units staffed by officers trained in domestic violence. In the PSP, there are also officers with specific training, both in criminal investigation and in crime prevention and community policing.
Both police forces have focused on specialized training. Since 2004, the GNR has created 24 Investigation and Support Units for Specific Victims. Since 2006, the PSP has created 19 specialized structures for domestic violence.
Other changes have been introduced. In 2005, the standard model for police reports/complaints was introduced (revised in 2021). In 2007, the electronic complaint system was implemented. In 2009, the possibility of arrest outside of in flagrante offenses was established.
The police were required to assign victim status to the offended party, providing them with the name of the investigating officer so they could obtain information, and offering to accompany them to their residence to retrieve personal belongings. By 2010, electronic surveillance made prohibiting contact more effective. In 2014, the risk assessment form was launched (currently under review). In 2018, municipal districts began forming specialized networks. In 2019, victim support units appeared in the main Departments of Investigation and Criminal Prosecution. Meanwhile, the scope of the crime, which only came to be known as "domestic violence" in 2007, was widened. It now encompasses those analogous to spouses (1995), ex-spouses (2007), and boyfriends/girlfriends (2013). It includes not only heterosexual but also homosexual relationships (2007), and in addition to ascendants, now includes descendants, while it is enough for children to merely be exposed to violence (2021).
“The progress has been extraordinary, but the violence itself remains extremely serious," says Helena Pinto. "There are women who file complaints and don't feel supported. There are women who ended up dying after going to the police two, three, four, five, six, seven times. This is unacceptable."
“It’s impossible for us to keep even aggressors who are assessed as high-risk in prisons,” says Hugo Guinote. “On average, the PSP receives 15,000 reports of domestic violence per year, 20 to 25% of which are assessed as high-risk. If we arrested and imprisoned 3,500 per year, the prison system would collapse.”
He believes other measures need to be considered. “We all have to rethink. The current model is almost exclusively focused on the victim. If we don't work with the aggressor, we will be failing to do 50% of our work.” At the end of 2024, there were 2,788 people in rehabilitation programs, 1,358 in prison, and 948 under electronic surveillance.
Failures on a number of fronts
Upon becoming aware of a crime of domestic violence, the police must report it to the Public Prosecutor's Office as soon as possible. This does not exempt them, however, from promptly initiating an investigation and taking urgent precautionary measures.
Rada was still bleeding when the GNR arrived. The police called the medical emergency services, who took her, in her pajamas, by ambulance to the nearest hospital; they identified the suspect and collected contact information from any witnesses.
Although she was interviewed in a victim support room, Rada felt treated “like a suspect”. Why did she feel judged? Why was there no empathy? Because she was an immigrant? Because he was a police officer? Did they treat all victims like that? Did they want to defend their “colleague”?
She photographed the marks of beatings, recorded messages, submitted to forensic examinations, and identified witnesses, including the colleague who witnessed his frequent controlling phone calls. She recounted everything she knew about her fiancé and was left with the feeling that much had not been investigated.
In her book “Esquadra de Polícia" (“Police Precinct” or “Police Station”, 2016), anthropologist Susana Durão notes that those who respond at the crime scene are patrol officers, while those at the police station assume a reduced role. They consider these victims "subject to specialized intervention by criminal investigation agents or officers, and leave any type of investigation to these bodies."
In “A Letra e os Espíritos da Lei — A violência doméstica em Portugal” (“The Letter and the Spirit of the Law — Domestic Violence in Portugal”, 2016), PSP official Nuno Poiares draws attention to the lack of training among frontline officers. He collected accounts of attempts to induce the withdrawal of complaints and of "difficulty in conveying a sense of security at first contact, as officers treat the subject superficially, cannot resist making value judgments, lack patience, and do not provide information in an adequate way."
Alongside training, working conditions are also important, emphasizes Madalena Sofia Oliveira, a professor at the Higher Institute of Social Services in Porto. “Especially in smaller communities, where one moment they are dealing with an accident and the next they are assisting a victim of domestic violence. The difference between specialized clinics, with highly trained professionals, and services that have to handle all kinds of incidents is striking.”
Victims fall silent
In the latest report submitted by a number of non-governmental organizations to the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence, or GREVIO, using the Portuguese acronym (2024), it is acknowledged that “the police have been the target of massive and intensive training.” The report also criticizes the exclusion of those on patrol, who have direct contact with victims.
The report also states there is still no national coverage of victim support rooms, present in 347 of a total of 470 GNR posts and 166 of a total of 188 PSP stations. The same is true for specialized sections working closely with the Public Prosecutor's Office and victim support services. Nor is the 72-hour action manual always followed. "The authorities simply collect the evidence indicated by the victim, usually hospital records and witness names." And most cases end up being shelved.
Major Andreia Lopes, head of the Investigation and Victim Support Department of the GNR’s Criminal Investigation Unit, focuses on the difficulty of obtaining evidence. Often, everything happens within the home. And it's one person's word against another. Sometimes, there are even complaints and counter-complaints.
“After a violent attack, the victim remembers and verbalizes it well," he explains. "But the process ends up being emotionally draining. If the victim stops talking and we only have their testimony, it is very difficult to have enough evidence for the Public Prosecutor's Office to file charges. And that is one of the main problems."
A range of evidence is important. It is essential to investigate whether any neighbors heard insults, threats, or aggression, or whether teachers noticed that the children were more agitated on that particular day. Cell phones and emails should be checked for compromising messages.
Several factors can lead a victim to remain silent, some of which cast doubts over the effectiveness of the system. Take the example of Antônia*, who was in her 20s when she filed a complaint against her then partner with the Criminal Investigation Police.
He was undergoing GNR training, and would have been expected to possess the physical and moral qualities befitting someone who wears the organization’s uniform. After the birth of his daughter, however, he revealed himself to be possessive, controlling, and manipulative.
He went so far as to grab her around her neck, but that's not what Antônia focuses on when talking about what made her leave home. "It was the verbal abuse in front of my daughter. She was so scared. She would have been traumatized by the yelling."
She took the child and some belongings, got in the car, and went back to her parents' house. Her father accompanied her to the police station. Back home, she began to think: “They make the court believe it's not true. Then they start the accusations of parental alienation. And it's the children who suffer.”
She felt that foregoing justice was the price to pay for her daughter's safety, so did not cooperate when summoned to give a statement at her local GNR. And so the case was closed.
The report the NGOs sent to GREVIO does not focus on this absence of trust when addressing why cases are dismissed. "Evidence is not collected due to deficiencies in the questioning of victims and witnesses, lack of resources (no wiretapping or other means of surveillance, for example), and, above all, poor assessment,” it reads.
“The Public Prosecutor’s Office is not yet proactive — there is no active searching for evidence,” the report continues, while “the 72-hour deadline has helped in the application of more coercive measures, but is not enough.” The “high number” of victims accommodated in various structures of the national network is proof – at the end of 2024, there were 1420, of whom 727 were women, 669 were children, and 24 were men.
In addition to ongoing training and the expansion of specialist services, criminologist Joana Torres calls for "better coordination between police, justice, social services, and non-governmental organizations." "Response networks function in different ways, and not always in the true sense of coordination,” she says.
João Lázaro points out that the National Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality, which oversees support for victims, does not coordinate domestic violence policies. "We still lack a transversal approach," he says.
When she was the state secretary for Citizenship and Equality, sociologist Rosa Monteiro sought to strengthen the protection of victims, the monitoring of aggressors, and the training of police officers and the judiciary. “Putting the system into operation requires turning plans into concrete reality. We have a chronic failure in the implementation of policies.”
In her view, domestic violence "cannot be removed from the public agenda." "There will always be aspects that can be improved in order to avoid the culture of impunity that exists and which still largely permeates the justice system. There needs to be constant pressure on various sectors to act, and for there to be no room for situations where the law is not applied or is applied through interpretations that offer excuses.”
When an abuser is a police officer
Since this is the most reported crime against the person in Portugal, some, like Graça Rojão, executive director of Coolabora, a social intervention cooperative, believe it is reasonable to expect the PSP and the GNR to have statistics on cases involving their officers. And "exemplary" disciplinary proceedings.
By law, the Public Prosecutor's Office must report such cases to the National Directorate of the PSP and the General Command of the GNR. At PÚBLICO’s request, both forces calculated a combined 495 disciplinary proceedings initiated between 2019 and 2023. Of these, 401 were concluded, resulting in 59 convictions and five expulsions from the forces.
Domestic violence permeates all social and professional classes. Graça Rojão is not surprised by the discovery it exists among members of the police force. She emphasizes that the PSP and GNR "are part of the formal protection system and are on the front line of contact with victims."
She doesn't know Rada, Maria, or Antônia, but she knows of other cases. And she understands these aggressors have weapons, know how to attack without leaving marks, and know how the system works. And that their victims are more afraid to ask for help and run a greater risk of being disbelieved, especially through the aggressor’s colleagues “closing ranks”. In smaller communities, close relationships and the aggressor’s influence in the community make matters worse.
If society in general has to combat the beliefs and stereotypes that are at the root of domestic violence, then the police “must exercise additional care,” she argues. “On the one hand, the trust that these forces should inspire must be seriously protected; on the other hand, it is important they do not replicate the tendency to externalize blame, which, in practical terms, can correspond to exoneration from thinking that violence stems from alcohol consumption, stress at work, or a lack of money.”
Everyone recognizes the value of training in combating domestic violence. Tatiana Moura, from the University of Coimbra, also recommends consistent psychosocial support. Sofia Neves, from the University of Maia, advocates for clear codes of conduct and flowcharts of action. Graça Rojão calls for public scrutiny and academic research that can highlight future solutions.
How can you trust a convicted police officer?
In May last year, after her ex-fiancé’s sentence had been handed down, Rada was summoned to the Deontology and Discipline Unit of the PSP. The disciplinary process against her aggressor had not yet been concluded. According to the PSP, “the investigation of the case has been completed and a final decision is awaited.”
Rada, now 40, was in a relationship with the officer for three years. They had been living together for a few months when the Covid-19 pandemic swept over part of the world. He would often argue with her, mainly because he couldn't stand her smoking, and disapproved of her parenting style.
Several times, he grabbed Rada by the hands or arms and called her a "bitch," "stupid," an "idiot," a "donkey," a "cow." "You deserve your parents’ death," he once told her, in the middle of an argument.
Rada didn't want to believe that the man who had won her over was, in fact, an abuser. He would get down on his knees, apologize, promise to control himself, promise to change. And she would give him another chance.
Once, furious that Rada had allowed her daughter to spend the weekend with her father, he grabbed her by the wrists and neck and pinned her against the wall. She called the GNR, but then did not take the complaint further.
Next, he was furious because she refused to go with him to the family Christmas party. Attending would involve taking a Covid-19 test, which Rada was unwilling to do. On the morning of December 26th, he exploded.
They were in the kitchen when he attacked, forcing her to run round the kitchen island to escape him. The aquarium was knocked over. She slipped. He caught her. “He slapped her, pulled her hair, tearing it out, throttled her and threw her to the ground, causing her to hit her head,” reads the court ruling.
Rada wanted to call the police, but he took her cell phone. She fled outside and lit a cigarette, trying to calm down. He beat her again. While she was begging for help, he mocked her: "You shouldn’t hit a woman."
In the end, a man who was spending Christmas with relatives in a neighboring apartment called the GNR, after waking to the sound of screams and objects being thrown. From the balcony, he saw a man with his hands around a woman's neck.
The court concluded that a “severe” punishment was necessary. It sentenced the perpetrator to a suspended prison sentence of two years and six months, ordered him to attend a Domestic Violence Offenders Program, prohibited him from contacting the victim, and ordered him to pay her a small amount of compensation.
"It was a battle, but I achieved something," says Rada. "I knew I wouldn't get far, that it wouldn't be much, but I can sleep with a clear conscience. I did what was right. I defended the honor of women. I'm raising a daughter. I don't want her to be assaulted."
But if he isn’t punished at work, the entire police force looks rotten in her eyes. "Do you think it's right for him to continue in the PSP?" she asks. "Do you feel protected by a police officer like that? I know we shouldn't lump everyone in together, but I've lost confidence in the police. I think it's wrong for him to continue working in the PSP."
* Names have been changed and locations and other details have been omitted to protect the identities of the victims.
