Domestic violence – conception, problems

The article aims to reveal the conception of domestic violence and analyze legal obstacles that prevent police officers form dealing with violence in the family. For this purpose the legal aspects of solving family problems were analyzed and legal obstacles were pointed out. In order to describe the conception of domestic violence and point out the legal obstacles, data analysis was used. To specify the problems that police officers face while dealing with domestic violence, authors made a questionnaire in which police officers could state their attitude towards domestic violence and specify the difficulties they have when solving family conflicts. One hundred and nine students who are working as police officers from MRU Kaunas Faculty of Public security participated in the research. The results indicate that the conception of domestic violence is not defined in Lithuanian laws. Lithuania does not have a law that offers any legal measures for dealing with violence in family. Police officers do not have the legal powers to effectively deal with domestic violence