Can The Police Reduce Domestic Violence? How Can They Help Prevent This Issue?

The feminist movement and women’s advocacy groups identified domestic violence as a serious issue and demanded for a change in the police response (Feder and Henning 2005). In conjunction with the release of the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment’s research findings that arrest deterred future acts of violence and aided in lowering recidivism rates, many states enacted the new police policies to facilitate the arrest of domestic violence perpetrators. Previously, officers assessed the scene and interviewed the parties then decided the best course of action based on the facts collected. Historically, police officers used discretion in “street-level decision making ranging from decisions on whom to stop, when to write a ticket, and when to follow agency policy” (Phillips and Sobol 2010:100). Yet, some research has suggested that the enactment of mandatory arrest laws “require a specific action, eliminating an officer’s discretion to ignore, stretch, or only provisionally apply criminal law” (Phillips and Sobol 2010:100). The dichotomy of such laws eliminated officer discretion thus leading to the increase of arrests of victims and perpetrators alike. Hirschel et. al. (2008) found that the existence of mandatory arrest laws produced higher arrest rates across all three relationship categories of intimate

This paper will show common dynamics surrounding officer-involved domestic violence (OIDV) including the most associated causes for it. It will also touch on a few reasons why victims of OIDV are far less likely to come forward. The purpose of this paper is not to attempt to justify the actions of the abusive police officer, but rather to shed some light on the factors that appear to promote the conditions for OIDV. It will also lend to the reader perspective of the lifestyle an officer experiences as a result of the duty expectations. At the end of this paper, the reader will take away knowledge of specific factors that need to be considered when trying to recognize and change the conditions that build to cause OIDV.

What’s been proposed in the past to solve the problem? There has been many things proposed in the past to solve the problem, however some work more than others. The most common solution that you will hear about is domestic abuse hotlines. The domestic abuse hotline help recover the mental health of victims and survivors of domestic abuse relationship through human connection. This has been proposed as a solution for domestic abuse victim because it helps victims of abuse recover mentally. “Studies suggest that there is a relationship between intimate partner violence and depression and suicidal behavior”(NCADV). This is one of the many reasons why the domestic abuse hotline is needed to help domestic abuse victims. The domestic abuse project

The Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment is also known as (MDVE), was an experiment that evaluated the effectiveness of the police when they responded to domestic violence calls in Minneapolis. This experiment was conducted during early 80’s for over a year by Dr. Lawrence W. Sherman who at the time was the Director of Research at the Police Foundation that is a non-profit foundation to assist police department to become extra effective and by the Minneapolis Police Department with all the monetary support from the National Institute of Justice. The results were mix showing a deterrent effect for arrest and impacted the current police practices during the early 80’s. Ten years later, numerous law enforcement agencies implemented policies to enforce mandatory arrest, without any warrant, for domestic violence cases where the police officer had probable cause for an arrest since a crime had occurred.

Findings have demonstrated that the policies appear to work at first; however, later on they started to do more harm than good. In the book “Family Violence” by Liza N. Burby, she stated, “but mandatory arrest is not a long-term solution to domestic violence. It is a quick way to calm an explosive situation and to get the abused out of harm’s way” (Burby 54). This shows that mandatory arrests are not the solution for domestic violence because it has only worked when there was an “explosive situation”, but for the long run; it has made more harm than helping the people suffering from domestic violence. This findings showed that when the pro-arrest or mandatory arrest policies have worked when they first were made, but now they no longer work as expected and instead they are hurting more and more as time goes on. In the article “Mandatory Arrest Laws Do Not Reduce Domestic Violence” by John Klofas, he claims that “arrest can reduce violence in the short term but it can increase it in the long run. According to the research, arrest resulted in a doubling of the rate of violence within a year” (Klofas). This also supports the idea that mandatory arrests policies worked at first, but later they stopped working. Policies like pro-arrest were not made for the long-term use. Besides that they not only work, they have also increased the amount of violence in families who are affected by domestic violence. The harm that produces these policies has alarmingly increased, the amount of violence has doubled in only one year. There must be an alternate solution to this problem because if there is no action, people are going to be affected. In the article “Mandatory Arrest and Restraining Orders Are Ineffective” by Richard L. Davis, he stated that, “arrest reduces domestic violence in the short run but escalates

There are many concepts/theories in regards to what researchers believe law enforcement can do that would lead to a more effective control over domestic violence. Researchers have many ideas that they believe will deter abuse such as batterer treatment programs, arrests, prosecution/sentencing, etc. However, concepts that are strictly related to the police having more effective control over domestic violence are arrests, treat domestic violence calls as a high priority, encourage victims to seek help, following up with the victim, etc. These concepts in particular have been helpful when trying to understand how the police try to alleviate domestic violence. Many researchers believe that arrests will lead to the reduction of domestic violence.

Questions to consider in researching such a topic include: What can be classified as domestic violence? How are civilian and officer- involved domestic violence similar and different? What are warning sign of domestic violence? When should one report domestic violence? How can a law enforcement officer be a victim? Why do victims remain in the abusive relationships? How does officer-involved domestic violence impact the victim, the children, the agency, and the community?

Domestic Violence could be addressed in many ways but the best way is should be left up to the officer who arrives at the scene of the problem. Every domestic violence call is differently and it there is different ways for them to be handled. If there is physical violence and someone is in a lot of danger than the police officer should really remove them from the situation. According to the Minneapolis study, it was found that arrest produced lower rate of repeated domestic violence than separation and mediation. So basically, when a person is arrested at the time of a domestic violence situation the repeated offense is produced at a lower rate. One difference between domestic violence and domestic dispute is domestic dispute is an argument

In order to combat domestic violence, many states passed laws and legislation requiring police to make warrantless arrests in response to all domestic violence calls. Harvard scholar, Radha Iyengar, who has studied domestic violence related homicide and the effects of mandatory arrest policies for domestic violence, suggests that although these policies were created to help victims, the solution of mandatory arrests in domestic violence incidents, led to many negative consequences; putting many women in danger, rather than helping them (Iyengar). Though designed to deter violence by offenders, mandatory arrest laws make women more vulnerable to being arrested themselves, lead abuse in domestic violence disputes to become more severe, and deter women from reporting violence to police (Strout).

Depending on the community the mandatory arrest policy could be very valuable to domestic violence victims. However, there is much to be altered about this policy before it could be generalized among various populations. The safety of the victim is the ultimate goal to be accomplished within domestic calls to the police. Considering research among domestic violence is still essentially in it’s early stages, it may be some time before truly effective policies are in

Domestic Violence is one of the most common crimes that occur, however not all of them being reported. There are many effects and causes to this behavior in law enforcement officers that have been studied by many researchers doctors, authors, and the media. The victims of domestic violence from law enforcement officers (mostly being women) are affected by this greatly on a higher level than regular women who aren’t married to police officers or, as they have much more to lose if such acts were ever reported on their spouses. There are many theoretical causes of domestic violence from law enforcement officers, which effect their victims greatly, making it almost impossible for them to report any offense without some type of

This analysis is written for those who are wanting either enter the criminal justice system, or are wanting a better understanding of the criminal justice system. Specifically, this analysis would be helpful for those with an interest in how the criminal justice system handles IPV. It would benefit them to understand the changes to the term domestic violence, and to also understand how police departments handle these situations. This terminology can be vitally important for understanding articles about police responses to IPV.

First, there are several measures the criminal justice system should take to reduce intimate partner violence. It is important to note that police officers often do not want to respond or make arrest in IPV cases since they can cause danger to the police, so arrest are often not made in these situations. However, after research was conducted in the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment, they found that those who were arrested for IPV were less likely to commit these types of crimes in the future (Daigle 2013). This study resulted in several states adopting the mandatory arrest polices that require police officer to arrest those for IPV where probable cause and sufficient evidence are found for the arrest. I suggest that this policy should

A second example of a theory that would explain domestic violence would be the social learning theory. This theory falls under the category of the psychological theory. The social learning theory is the most relevant theory that applies to criminology. “Behavior is supported by rewards and extinguished by negative reactions or punishments” (Siegel, 2007, p.109). The social learning theory believes people are not born with the ability to act in

Domestic violence is skyrocketing in our society. In the U.S., as many as 1.5 million women and 850,000 men were physically assaulted by their intimate partner last year, and numerous children abused by their parents. These sad criminal acts will continue to grow in our society, unless our community takes action to stop these crimes.