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7 Police Stud.: Int'l Rev. Police Dev. 23 (1984)
The Police Response to Domestic Violence: An Exploratory Study

handle is hein.journals/polic7 and id is 25 raw text is: The Police Response to Domestic Violence: An Exploratory Study Daniel J. Bell Southwest Texas State University, U.S.A. Abstract This research has been an exploratory study of police dispositions of domestic dispute and vio- lence incidents in the state of Ohio. First, the data clearly indicated that the prevailing family problem has been domestic violence against wives. Second although the victims were pre- dominantly wives (71%) and they were injured or killed in 38% of the domestic disputes, the police arrested offenders in only 14% of these incidents. The police have not made as many arrests as were justifiable or filed reports in disputes where arrests were not made. The data incidated that the police have failed to ar- rest offenders in domestic dispute and violence incidents when they were legally justified to do so. Third, the relationship between no com- plaint initiated and no action taken indicated that many police jurisdictions have discouraged their officers from arresting domestic violence offenders unless the victims initiated the com- plaints. Fourth, the lack of domestic dispute reporting has been precipitated by the fact that the police have only made minimal effort to secure appropriate dispositions in cases where arrests were not made. Fifth, in cases where criminal complaints were initiated under the Domestic Violence Program or other Ohio Revised Code violations the tendency to refer. offenders to other agencies was significantly higher than when no complaints were initiated. The conclusion is unavoidable: when criminal complaints are initiated the police evade arrest- ing domestic violence offenders by referrals to other agencies. Thus, the police perceive of- fender referrals as an arrest avoidance mechan- ism rather than a service to aid in resolving the disputants' problems. Finally, referrals (15%) -to other agencies have been unreliable dispo- sitions. Producing judgments, recommending counseling, civil remedies or the clergy without ascertaining the nature and magnitude of the disputants'problem has been inappropriate. The study of family disputes is relatively new. Indepth research on domestic dispute and vio- lence incidents has only been conducted for slightly more than a decade. Also, a consider- able amount of what passes for knowledge regarding domestic violence is actually stereo- typic thinking (Gelles, 1979: 141). Pizzey (1974) suggested that information regarding domestic dispute incidents has been limited primarily because society has ignored violence inside the home and within the family unit. The family has traditionally been viewed as a nonviolent entity. However, recent studies verify that vio- lence has occurred in the home and ranged from physical punishment to murder (Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz, 1980: 13-17). In addi- tion, domestic violence has been one of the most underreported crimes in the United States (Langley and Levy, 1977). Even so, the esti- mates of wives abused by their husbands range from 1.8 million (Straus, 1978: 445) to 28 mil- lion (Fleming, 1979: 154) each year. One of the more frequent and unwelcome tasks for the police is intervention in domestic dispute and violence incidents. In fact, domes- tic disputes have been one of the patrol officer's most prevalent calls for service and exceed the number of reported felony offenses. Also, the number of wife abuse incidents reported to the police has increased significantly in recent years and some cities have created courts with exclusive jurisdiction in domestic violence matters (Parnas, 1971a). As many as 50% of the cases of Chicago's Court of Domestic Rela- tions on any given day involved domestic vio- lence (Parnas, 1970). Historically, the police have considered domestic disturbances of only minor impor- tance in their overall responsibilities (Dobash and Dobash, 1979: 211). In part, this has been due to the fact that in domestic disputes the police do not provide a specific highly technical service; they provide generalized support ser-

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