Mandatory Arrest For Domestic Violence Essay

States around the country have given police the right to make warrantless arrests on in partner violence and has even limited their ability to use discretion by implementing mandatory arrests. This has made the job of the police much more difficult because they must go about handling situations like domestic violence delicately. It does not make it any easier now that the term “domestic violence” has now grown into an umbrella term including disputes between adults and children, blood relatives, and couples who sometimes are and are not married. Because the job of the police involves so many different factors and the changing social climate, it’s become quite difficult to discern whether or not having mandatory arrest laws are helpful. They

Domestic violence, or intimate partner violence, is a common problem. As a result, the criminal justice adapted to demands, especially from feminists, who bemoaned the poor response of police, and in turn, the justice system by instituting mandatory arrests. However, mandatory arrests have proven that just like protection or restraining orders, they are not effective in deterring domestic violence (Davis, 2008). Similarly, the arrests do not have a substantial effect on recidivism and create undue procedural complications for the criminal system (Zelcer, 2014). On the contrary, proponents of the approach, argue that it has a deterrent effect on the perpetrators and that it can even protect offer immediate protection for the victims (Clark, 2010). Nonetheless, using statistical evidence and arguments from scholarly sources, this position paper will expose the inefficiencies and constitutional inconsistencies that make mandatory arrests harmful for the batterer, victim, and the criminal justice system.

Domestic violence is a crime that occurs regularly within the United States. It claims millions of victims each year. There is not a specific cause to establish why domestic violence occurs. However, it has been documented that domestic violence is a product of physical, emotional, sexual, psychological, and any other forms of torture or torment that the particular abuser wishes to employ to gain control or power over their victims (Gosselin, 2005). Due to the complexity of this crime, many criminologists and socialologists have studied its causes and the effects in order to determine social policies and additional theories to better understand the causation of domestic violence. The social policies and theories that are developed from

Through, the years Domestic abuse and police arrests has impacted society because the police officers failed to provide equal protection towards women who are victims towards sexual abuse. Therefore, the policy reform was established to reduce crimes and political power. However, violent crimes have been categorized with higher rates of proscution.Women were not provided with equal protection against domestic abuse and increased the rate of victims who are incarcerated. Women who encountered domestic violence have been arrested for self-defense. Victims of domestic abuse have been physically forced and violently assault in order to take advantage of them and form authority over them. In order to understand the social world we need to include women experiences towards domestic violence and mandatory arrest in order to reduce crimes and prevent victims from being incarcerated.

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

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

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).

According to “The United States Department of Justice” Domestic violence is defined as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence has different forms sexual, physical, emotional and psychological actions or threats. These forms of treatment can influence another person. There are

In today’s society, domestic violence is an enormous problem that we live with. Domestic Violence is the greater common form of assault or battery encountered by police. Domestic violence don’t discriminate against age, gender, sex orientation and race. We live in a society that was built on conflicts, we also live a life that is full of hate, anger, lust and envy. The majority of the domestic violence cases that police officer intervene with, the cause was jealousy. The traditional police response to this case is for non-intervene since they believe that any couples’

The five sections of domestic violence as stated above are physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological. The physical aspect of domestic disputes includes hitting, biting, pinching, biting, and shoving. Physical abuse can also include depriving the victim of health treatments and forcing them to do deviant activities. Sexual abuse includes marital rape and treating the victim in a sexually patronizing way. Emotional abuse is anything involving diminishing the other person’s self-esteem or

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

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 and 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, 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 consequence of

While physical abuse is one part of domestic violence, physical abuse is only a portion of the problem. The National Domestic Violence 's website looks at a variety of abuse types. Threats, including threats of abuse or threatening to take away the children if he or she does not do something also constitutes abuse. Isolating the person from family or friends is another form

There are many different types of domestic violence. Physical abuse is the most obvious form, but this is not to say that outsiders always recognize it. Generally, physical violence causes bodily harm, using a variety of methods. Slapping, pushing, throwing, hitting, punching, and strangling are only a few methods. An object or weapon may or may not be used. There is not always physical evidence of physical abuse such as bruising, bleeding, scratches, bumps, etc., therefore, absence of physical marks does not necessarily mean physical abuse had not occurred. Physical abuse sometimes escalates to murder (Morris and Biehl 7, Haley 14-17).

As defined by the United States Department of Justice (2015), domestic violence is “a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner.” While most commonly when thinking of domestic violence, the image of a man physically beating a women comes to most people’s mind. Despite this being most common image of domestic violence, the DOJ’s definition gives a lot of leeway as to what abusive behavior could mean and who it involved. Of course there is the physical abuse which includes hitting, slapping, punching