Policing wife-abuse: The contribution made by ‘domestic disturbances’ to deaths and injuries among police officers

This study examines the claim that domestic disturbances account for a disproportionate number of deaths and injury to police officers. The uses to which this claim was put and the shift to arresting wife abusers during the 1980s are described. The crises of hegemony faced by the state during the 1960s is used to explain the widespread implementation of a family crisis intervention program that did nothing to reduce deaths and injuries to police officers or family members. The emergence of the women's movement helps explain the state's shift in emphasis from crisis intervention to arresting wife abusers.