ASSAULTIVENESS AND ALCOHOL USE IN FAMILY DISPUTES

Systematic naturalistic observation often contradicts experimental laboratory findings and idiosyncratic personal perceptions. In this study, family disputes managed by police officers trained in interpersonal conflict management yielded uniform observational data on 1,388 cases. The view shared by police and by social scientists that family disputes are likely to involve assaultiveness and that such behavior is typically caused by alcohol use was not supported by these data. Instead, the findings suggest that: assaults do not usually precede arrival of police; disputes are not usually influenced by alcohol use; and, indeed, assaults are less common when alcohol has been used.     

Predicting Officer Physical Assaults at Domestic Assault Calls

Police work is rife with the potential for physical harm, and domestic assault calls are one source of assaults on officers. Inability to accurately predict what circumstances might lead to an attack is one cause of officer cynicism and paranoia. Having the ability to identify which suspects pose the greatest threat of assault would allow officers to take appropriate protective measures. Using data collected from 1,951 domestic assault calls across three cities, the present study compared characteristics and behaviors of the batterers with whether or not the batterers physically assaulted the responding officers. Findings revealed five significant batterer characteristics (employment status, shared residence with abuse victim, alcohol consumption, property damage, and hostile demeanor toward officers) that successfully predicted officer assaults. These risk factors may be incorporated into police safety training in the response to family violence calls.     

Public's and police officers' interpretation and handling of domestic violence cases: divergent realities

The public's and police officers'interpretation and handling of realistic hypothetical domestic violence cases and their stereotypic views about domestic violence are discussed. A sample of 131 experienced officers, 127 novice officers, and 157 adult laypersons were randomly assigned to read a domestic violence case. Experienced officers were more likely to arrest only the husband than were laypersons or rookie officers even when respondents inferred that the husband was primarily responsible or had used violence before. Experienced officers considered their stereotypic beliefs about battered women's propensity to use self-defense in arriving at their arrest decision whereas laypersons and rookie officers did not. These findings indicate that the public and police officers have not adopted the feminists' message that arrest is the best response to handle all domestic violence cases. Policy implications are discussed.     

When is an assault not an assault? The Canadian public's attitudes towards wife and stranger assault

There is no distinction in the Canadian Criminal Code between assaults committed on strangers and assaults of spouses. Traditionally, however, wife assault has been considered a private affair, and it has been argued that this attitude continues to be reflected in the police response to domestic disputes. In this study of 240 adults'written responses to assault scenarios, the victim-offender relationship produced variations in ratings of seriousness, in the relative amounts of blame attributed to the victim and offender, and in the recommended police response. In general, nondomestic recidivist offenders tended to be treated most harshly by the subjects, as did offenders who assaulted their victims inside a private house. Additionally, female subjects gave higher ratings of seriousness of the offense, and considered future violence by the offender to be more likely, than did male subjects. The findings are explained in terms of the subjects' ability to identify with the offender, although the decision-making process in judging cases of assault is evidently complex. The implications of these findings for police officers with discretionary powers are considered.

     

Recording of offences on police domestic violence call outs

ABSTRACT

Due to new legislation passed in 2011, Finnish police have been legally obligated to record and investigate all assaults, including petty assaults, occurring in close relationships. Referred to as domestic violence (DV), these assaults can be prosecuted even without victim consent. Much like pro- and mandatory arrest policies, this reform was aimed at decreasing victim and police discretion, based on the assumption that recording and preliminary investigation of every DV incident would help prevent further violence. Comparison between police call outs and the number of offences indicate that in reality not every DV incident is recorded. Using Police and Emergency Call Database data merged with 410 police officer survey responses, the current study presents the first empirical results on legal and extra-legal factors associated with recording DV as an offence in Finland. Factors explaining non-recording are discussed based on police officers’ free-text comments, and implications for policy and practice are presented.     

Domestic Violence Victims' Behavior in Favor of Prosecution

Abstract

This article examines how economic, emotional and social-power related factors affect victims' behavior in favor of prosecution during police investigations. Data drawn from police records and police narrative reports indicated that mutual charge, dual arrest, the severity of assaults and the severity of injuries suffered by victims negatively affected the victims' behavior in favor of prosecution. These findings suggest that the norm of unequal relationships between men and women combined with an indiscriminate use of mutual charge and dual arrest without considering the defensive or offensive nature of violent acts can reduce trust in the criminal justice system among women victims of domestic violence and decrease the victims' interest in pursuing prosecution.     

Victim's perceptions of initial police responses to robbery and aggravated assault: Does race matter?

Despite the fact that police officers are usually the first persons within the criminal justice system to respond to a criminal victimization, the majority of research investigating racial discrimination within the system has examined primarily the effects of race on adjudication outcomes which occur after initial police interventions, such as conviction decisions and sentences. Very little empirical effort has been devoted to examining the effects of race on early police responses to a reported victimization. Using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey from 1987 to 1992, this paper investigates the effects of both the victim's and the offender's race on three police responses to robbery and aggravated assault: (1) police response time to the scene, (2) effort exerted by the police at the scene, and (3) likelihood of arrest. It was found that police were quicker to respond and also exerted more effort at the scene such as searching and taking evidence to incidents of black on white robbery compared to all other racial dyads. This relationship held even after controlling for other factors such as victim-offender relationship, poverty, injury to the victim, and victim's gender. No significant effects of race, however, were found when predicting the probability of arrest in cases of robbery. The effects of race on police responses to aggravated assault were more complicated. For assaults involving strangers, police were significantly more likely to exert additional effort at the scene if the victim was white and the offender was perceived to be black. This effect was reversed, however, for nonstranger assault victimizations. Police were significantlyless likely to exert effort at the scene or to make an arrest in black on white assaults involving nonstrangers. The most consistent predictors of arrest in both stranger and nonstranger assault victimizations were police response time, injury to the victim, and the incident occurring in a public setting.     

Police organizational factors,the racial composition of the police,and the probability of arrest

While past research has considered the effects of police organizational characteristics on various outcomes, including arrest rates, relatively little research has explored the role of the racial composition of the police and its association with race‐specific arrest rates. Furthermore, no research has explored the association between arrest probabilities for Black and White offenders and police organizational factors. Using data from the 2000 National Incident‐Based Reporting System (NIBRS), the 2000 Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS), and the 2000 decennial Census, the present exploratory study employs multilevel modeling to examine the association between police organizational factors including the percentage of the police force that is Black and arrest probabilities for offenders involved in 19,099 aggravated assaults and 100,859 simple assaults across 105 small cities. Results show that for simple assaults, the relative size of the Black police force is associated with the risk of arrest for both Black and White offenders. Furthermore, departments with relatively more Black police officers are found to have the largest gap in the arrest probabilities for White and Black offenders, although Whites are more likely to be arrested for assaults than Blacks, regardless of the racial composition of the police. Results also show those departments with more written policy directives, relatively larger administrative component, a higher educational‐level requirement, and centralized police departments have the highest arrest probabilities. Implications of these findings and recommendations for further research are discussed.     

The supreme court and police practices: The unusually busy 2003–2004 term

The 2003–2004 term of the Supreme Court was the most important term of the Court for the law enforcement community in the last decade. The Court decided 11 cases dealing with issues concerning actions taken by police officers, the largest number of “police practices” cases decided by the Court in the last nine years. In addition, several of these cases are among the most important of the 49 police practices cases decided during this time period. The Court: 1) upheld the arrest of all the occupants of a car when drugs are found in it; 2) permitted police roadblocks seeking information from the public in certain circumstances; 3) refused to suppress physical evidence obtained from Miranda violations; 4) expanded the availability of warrantless car searches incident to arrest to include arrests of recent occupants of the car; and 5) upheld statutes requiring persons stopped on reasonable suspicion to identify themselves.     

The “war on cops,” retaliatory violence,and the murder of George Floyd*

The police murder of George Floyd sparked nationwide protests in the summer of 2020 and revived claims that public outcry over such high-profile police killings perpetuated a violent “war on cops.” Using data collected by the Gun Violence Archive (GVA) on firearm assaults of U.S. police officers, we use Bayesian structural time series (BSTS) modeling to empirically assess if and how patterns of firearm assault on police officers in the United States were influenced by the police murder of George Floyd. Our analysis finds that the murder of George Floyd was associated with a 3-week spike in firearm assaults on police, after which the trend in firearms assaults dropped to levels only slightly above that which were predicted by pre-Floyd data. We discuss potential explanations for these findings and consider their relevance to the contemporary discussion of a “war on cops,” violence, and officer safety.     

Policing Domestic Violence 1967–2017

The U.S. President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration of Justice under President Johnson in 1967 called for a program of research that would support evidence‐based tracking, targeting, and testing of policing domestic “disputes.” During the past 50 years, the amount of research on domestic violence has grown. The findings from targeting studies reveal a steep pyramid from many low‐harm cases at the base rising to a tiny fraction that are lethal. The findings from testing studies reveal that arrests reduce reoffending among employed persons in the short run while increasing recidivism among unemployed suspects. Arrests in one experiment increased all‐cause mortality of victims over 23 years. The findings from tracking research reveal wide variance across police agencies in implementing mandatory arrest. Since the Crime Commission, however, mandatory arrest laws were also enacted in 28 states in the 1980s, with uneven enforcement for misdemeanor domestic abuse. New research is needed to test the effectiveness of other domestic violence interventions, including restorative justice, as well as follow‐up studies of previous research sites.     

Crisis intervention skills training for police negotiators in the 21st century

Summary While Crisis Management training and intervention skills are not new areas for police officers or for police crisis negotiators, it is certainly true that such training must be included in the overall preparation for police officers in general and for police crisis negotiators in particular. Not to do so ignores the need for such skills in the day-to-day functions and calls-for-service of these groups. It has been the experience of this author, in talking with police negotiators, that more and more calls for their services are being made, in situations which are non-hostage related, than ever before. These areas continue to include barricaded individuals, suicidal persons, family disputes in which one member of the family is holding other members of the family against their will, and abuse situations including spouse abuse and child abuse. Additional areas include those in which there are juveniles involved as well as within school settings. Some of the latter may involve hostages while others do not. Finally, it is becoming less unusual for negotiators to be summoned only to find that the subject has engaged in acts designed to evoke fatal responses from those officers involved. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as “death by cop.” Further, it is also important that those indirectly involved in these situations receive this type of Crisis Intervention training. These may include first response officers, first response police and security personnel in our public and private schools, security officers in our hospitals and courthouses, and others who, due to their particular jobs, may be involved in these types of incidents.     

Attitudes of police recruits towards domestic disturbances: An evaluation of family crisis intervention training

Police student officers' attitudes towards domestic disputes following family-crisis-intervention training are analyzed. A total of 359 student officers from fourteen training classes participated in the study. The most dramatic improvement in attitudes was observed in officers' perceptions of disputants and in their perceptions of domestic disturbance calls. The study also investigated the attitudes of student officers toward organizational policy, training, and community relations. Student officers' attitudes significantly improved in thirty-one of fifty-one items (p < .05). In general, the changes in attitudes demonstrated that the family-crisis-intervention program did affect the attitudes of student officers in the predicted direction of change. Following training, student officers were more likely to view domestic disputes as legitimate police business and more likely to believe that their actions could influence families in crisis and that people in crisis both want, and will benefit from, assistance. It is concluded that crisis-intervention training appears to be responsible for the change in officer attitudes and that family-crisis training should be included in the curriculums of police training academies.     

Spousal violence: Police officer attitudes and arrest response

Conclusion On the 15 propositions, three propositions were found to support the general hypothesis. The findings indicate that as police officers showed an increase in attitudes supporting spousal violence the following occurred: (a) “frequent calls for police assistance from the household” became less important to police officers who were deciding to arrest; (b) “Jail overcrowding” became more important to police officers who were deciding not to arrest; and (c) “participant’s first encounter with the police” became more important to police officers who were deciding not to arrest. The other 12 propositions did not support the general hypothesis which suggested that the priority of all extralegal factors would relate to the ABUSE score.     

Double Your Trouble: Dual Arrest in Family Violence

When arrest is mandated for domestic violence crimes the arrest of two individuals, or dual arrest, often occurs. This study examines the characteristics of the crime and the people caught in dual arrests, with a special emphasis on the women arrested. The data were drawn from a population of 4138 disposed family violence cases in the criminal court, 448 of their arrest records, and 90 prosecutor files. Thirty three percent of the 448 cases disposed were dual arrests. Persons subject to dual arrest were primarily white, young, nonurban, unmarried employed persons. The incident was likely to involve alcohol or drug use and physical beating with hands or fists. Forty percent of the women arrested were previously victimized in a domestic violence incident. Findings suggest that dual arrests may reflect both the differential use of violence in domestic relations and the over enforcement of policy by some police departments.     

A summary and analysis of warrantless arrest statutes for domestic violence in the United States

In the United States, all 50 states and the District of Columbia have enacted statutes that allow police officers to make warrantless arrests for domestic violence given probable cause; however, state laws differ from one another in multiple, important ways. Research on domestic violence warrantless arrest laws rarely describe them as anything more than discretionary, preferred, or mandatory, either within their analyses or within the texts of their publications; researchers, and their audiences, may not be aware of the vast and potentially important differences among these laws. In this article, we list the domestic violence warrantless arrest laws for each state, and discuss them in terms of five common elements: the phrasing of the arrest authority; whether additional factors to domestic violence are required to trigger the arrest authority; qualifications to the arrest authority; time limits for warrantless arrest to occur; and whether police officers are required to report why they made a dual or no arrest. We then analyze the common elements of the laws, paying particular attention to how they may encourage or discourage the arrest of alleged domestic violence perpetrators. It is critical that researchers, advocates, and policymakers are aware of these variations in state statutes when conducting or interpreting research or making policy recommendations.     

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE LEGISLATION: EXPLORING ITS IMPACT ON THE LIKELIHOOD OF DOMESTIC VIOLENCE,POLICE INVOLVEMENT,AND ARREST*

Research Summary: This research uses data from the National Crime Victimization Survey to test whether legislation affects domestic violence, police involvement, and arrest. Findings suggest that most laws do reduce the chances of family or intimate violence. Fewer appear to influence police involvement, and none relate to more arrest. This suggests that laws may deter would‐be offenders from harming family and partners. Policy Implications: The findings suggest that states should continue to aggressively pursue domestic violence offenders. However, local officials should recognize that mandatory arrest laws could reduce the number of cases that enter the system. Further, more protection should go toward victims when the state awards them custody of the children.     

Sexual Assault Case Outcomes: Disentangling the Overlapping Decisions of Police and Prosecutors

The rape reform movement of the 1970s and 1980s was designed to improve the likelihood of prosecution and conviction in sexual assault cases. However, there is evidence that the attrition rate for sexual assaults reported to the police remains high, and that the locus of case attrition is arresting and charging decisions. In this paper, we analyze police and prosecutorial decision-making in sexual assault cases using quantitative data on sexual assaults reported to the Los Angeles Police Department and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in 2008. We argue that decisions made by police and prosecutors should not be examined in isolation from one another and that researchers who analyze arrest decisions by examining only cases that are formally cleared by arrest or who focus only on charging decisions that follow the arrest of a suspect may be ignoring important aspects of police and prosecutorial decision-making. This is confirmed by the results of our study, which reveal that a significant proportion of cases in which the police appear to have probable cause to make an arrest do not result in the arrest of the suspect and that a substantial number of cases are rejected for prosecution by the district attorney before an arrest is made. Moreover, the factors that predict arrest and charging vary depending upon the way in which the outcome is operationally defined. These results have a number of important policy implications for police and prosecutors handling sexual assault cases.     

Police Enforcement of Domestic Violence Laws: Supervisory Control or Officer Prerogatives?

Police officers are afforded a high degree of discretion in the exercise of their authority, and the control of this discretion is an important issue. While it is assumed that individual officer attitudes and preferences shape their discretionary activity, these officers are also members of a paramilitary organization with leaders over them. The present study explored the influence of both officer attitudes and management influences to explain variation in officer domestic violence arrest rates. Hierarchical linear modeling was used with a sample of 311 patrol officers and 61 supervisors from 23 municipal police agencies across multiple states. Unlike much of the previous literature, the results revealed that officer occupational attitudes had no effect on this particular officer work behavior. Management influences (such as rewards and written policies) significantly influenced officers’ domestic violence arrest behavior. The findings emphasize the complexity involved in the control of officer discretion.     

Improving the linkages between domestic violence referral agencies and the police: A research note

Domestic disputes pose serious threats to police officers and disputants alike. Crisis intervention training programs have improved the ability of police to quell a conflict temporarily, but national studies show that retuns to some households are not unusual, and they are increasingly hazardous. There are a number of service agencies in most jurisdictions having the goal of offering assistance to domestic disputants in hopes of a more permanent resolution to the conflict, but the linkage between these agencies and the police has been unsatisfactory. This article describes a program implemented at the Washtenaw Country Sheriff's Department, Ann Arbor, Michigan, designed to increase the rate of referral contact by domestic disputants. The program was implemented for a six-month period, and increased the follow-up contract rate by 600 percent.