The Evolving Police Response to Domestic Violence

Recent decades have seen massive changes in how police respond to domestic violence. The traditional police response could best be characterized by a desire to avoid intervention in family disputes and to avoid arrest whenever possible. Police socialization and culture, statutory restrictions on misdemeanor arrest, organizational disincentives, and lack of department policies and training were all reflective of a broader societal indifference. Beginning in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there came political and legal pressure from women’s rights and battered women advocates, research, and organizational concerns over the possibility of liability if the police continued past practices of neglecting these victims. Initial efforts focused on crisis intervention as proposed by New York City police psychologist Morton Bard (1967, 1973). The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) spent millions of dollars between 1971 and 1976 to provide in-service training for officers in more than a dozen police departments to encourage the use of Bard’s intervention. This approach was promoted by the International Association of Chiefs of Police and widely supported (Mohr & Steblein, 1976). However, the 1970s brought about skepticism as to the efficacy of rehabilitation widespread and a growth in support for the increased use of criminal sanctions for a variety of offenses. Domestic violence was no exception, and the focus shifted from keeping families intact to ensuring victim safety. The famous Minneapolis Domestic Violence Study by Sherman and Berk (1984) was used to further confirm the efficacy of arrest as a strategy for reducing domestic violence. As a result, domestic violence statutes and police policies nationwide shifted toward more proactive interventions, including not mandated, arrest. Arrests subsequently increased dramatically, and jurisdictions with mandatory arrest statutes and/or policies have the highest arrest rates, followed