Police Response to Domestic Violence - Essay Example

Police response to domestic violence Police response to domestic violence Domestic violence may be a serious problem in society today. There have been some major transformations on police response to domestic violence calls; however, there may still be numerous areas that need some perfection. This essay examines the issue of policing domestic violence through examining an experiment conducted by Sherman and Berk in 1984 and a subsequent study conducted by Pate and Hamilton in 1992. In addition, it will provide an explanation as to the relationship between arrest and deterrence in cases where police respond to domestic violence calls. Police response to domestic violence calls became a concern when its efforts were censured for putting too much concentration on victims and not on lawful remedies. These grievances regarded the ineffective police response to domestic violence calls. However, in the 1980’s, there was a shift within the legal approach to regard domestic violence as an act of crime (Ferraro, 1989). This new transformation demolished the common law and altered the perceptions of law enforcement officers. Police officers based their arrests on probable cause and discretion; however, some law enforcement officers still believed that their function was to arbitrate on the issue and not apply probable cause in cases that involved domestic violence (Ferraro, 1989). In 1984, the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment (MDVE) was conducted by Sherman and Berk. The rationale behind this study was to figure out and address how police officers respond to domestic violence cases. In this examination, they established that arrest decreases and deters violence acts from occurring in the future (Sherman and Berk, 1984). Many frontline law enforcers, and in some situations professional police officers, lack the skills they need to deal with domestic violence successfully. Police officers are often ill-equipped to recognize risky behavioral patterns of domestic violence perpetrators. In particular, where there may be no obvious physical assault, but there may be emotional and psychological intimidation, which can also have critical repercussions. Police officers often have little or no details about the perpetrators or the victims when they reach the scene. Law enforcement agencies have ineffective skills, often with a failure to challenge domestic violence calls. Police officers need to improve their understanding, knowledge and consequently, their ability to deal with domestic violence. The victims’ voices need to be heard to ensure the police officer’s response is targeted towards the victims. Feedbacks from victims assist police officers to plan appropriate services, and also provide a means of evaluating how well they may be performing. When a victim of domestic violence contacts police officers, in most situations, it may not be the first time they have experienced domestic violence. Sometimes their lives and the lives of their kids may be in immediate risk. Those officers responding to the call for help need to be able to identify domestic violence; to assure the victim, and to recommend them on how to keep their safety. They need to evaluate how effortlessly law enforcement ought to be sent. Police officers need to have a full picture of what had occurred to the victim in the past. It may be important that they have the right details so that they take the most beneficial action to support the domestic violence victim, when they get to the scene. There are factors of this first contact with the victim that could be enhanced. In some cases, there may be no explanations of what constitutes a repeat (in terms of past law enforcers contact) or the insecurity by the victim. If police officers cannot identify repeat victims, and express the history of the experienced domestic violence, then the possibilities to identify and protect the victim upon arrival are likely to be skipped. The quality of the officer’s response attending a domestic violence incident may be just as important as the speed with which they turn up. A responding police officer may be expected to keep the safety of the victim and their kids, give them assurance in the policing response, evaluate future risk so that the police officers can keep them secure, examine the incident and collect proof to back up a prosecution. It can be complicated and a delicate job where in some situations, victims can appear to be uncooperative when in reality they are frightened or are being controlled by the perpetrator of the domestic violence. Police officers too, can be under stress due to the varied nature and difference in response. Victims’ encounters of the initial response may be very mixed since the quality of service received by the victim may be entirely reliant on the understanding, empathy and dedication of the officer responding to that call. Without efficient training and guidance police officers may leave the matter of proficiency and ability of responding, entirely to chance. The support that some of the victims of domestic violence in our society get from responding police officers ought not to be a lottery. The Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment As earlier mentioned, the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment was an exemplary case that was motivated, in part, by an increase in spouse abuse where women were victimized by a violent partner and required medical attention due to a domestic assault. This experiment was built on a large body of contradictory theories regarding the impact of castigation on criminality (Sherman & Berk 1984). In an effort to determine means of preventing the recurrence of spouse abuse, Sherman and Berk repeatedly linked data and theory, developing both empirical generalizations and hypotheses. The initial phase was designed to test a hypothesis. Deterrence theory illustrates that a punishment will decrease the propensity to commit further crimes or recidivism. Sherman and Berk deduced a specific hypothesis from this theory; “Arrest in domestic violence on a spouse reduces the threat of repeat offenses.” In this hypothesis, the threat of repeat offenses was the dependent variable (it was hypothesized to depend on the arrest) while the arrest was the independent variable. This hypothesis was tested through setting up an experiment where police officers responded to the complaints of domestic violence of a spouse in one of the three means: arrest of the offender, separation of the spouses without arrest, or merely warning the perpetrator (Sherman and Berk, 1984). When Sherman and Berk examined their data (the police records for the individuals in that experiment), they discovered that, of those arrested for domestic violence, only thirteen percent repeated the offense in comparison to twenty six percent that had recidivism rates for those separated from their spouse without any arrest. This empirical generalization or data pattern was consistent with the hypothesis that they had deduced from the theory of deterrence; thus, the experiment received support from the theory. Nonetheless, the research findings in Minneapolis regarding the police response to domestic violence of a spouse basically never held up in six other cities; hence the initial outcomes could not be generalized (Sherman and Berk, 1984). The Metro-Dade Experiment Like the original Minneapolis study by Sherman and Berk’s in 1984, Pate and Hamilton’s, Metro-Dade experiment on spouse assault, sought to test the effect of deterrent of arrest, in cases of domestic violence, with an extra focus on the function of informal social control. The objective of the experiment was explanatory since the aim was to explicate variation in the tendency to commit domestic violence on a spouse (Pate and Hamilton, 1992). The theoretical framework in this experiment was provided by the deterrence theory, but included the proposition that informal sanctions such as the loss of valued relationships and stigma increased the effect of formal approvals such as arrest. The experiment was designed consistently, with consideration to requirements of terms, and explanation of presumptions, and targeted on the chance of different results rather than confidence about one preferred result. The major ideas in the research, informal and formal deterrence, were described clearly and then calculated with uncomplicated indicators of employment status and marriage status for informal deterrence and arrest or non-arrest for formal deterrence (Pate and Hamilton, 1992). However, the specific measurement techniques for employment and marriage status were never discussed, and no attempt was made to determine whether they captured the idea of informal social control, effectively. Pate and Hamilton stated three hypotheses that were also related to the larger framework and prior research by Sherman and Berk. The research design targeted on individuals’ behavior and gathered data over time, such as information showing subsequent attacks on a spouse up to six months after the initial police arrest. The research design was used to test for the causal effect of police arrest on recidivism. The research involved all qualified cases, rather than a sample case; however, there were a number of qualifications requirements that filtered down the ability to make generalizations to these results to the entire population affected by domestic violence of a spouse in the Metro-Dade area or elsewhere (Pate and Hamilton, 1992). Their research provided strong support to the anticipations that informal social control techniques are vital. As they had hypothesized, police arrest had a deterrent effect on perpetrators who were employed, but not on those who were jobless. However, status of marriage had no such effect. Subsequent discussions of these outcomes give no attention to the effects of the lack of support for the marriage status’s effect. Nonetheless, the research symbolizes an essential enhancement over earlier research by Sherman and Berk that had not analyzed informal sanctions. Pate and Hamilton suggest that their findings that police arrest deters only those perpetrators that have something to lose such as a job (Pate and Hamilton, 1992) Relationship between Arrest and Deterrence in domestic violence The relationship between arrest and deterrence in cases in which police respond to domestic violence calls, may be somehow vague. Sherman and Berk’s experiment on domestic violence tested predictions resulting from the rational choice theory that can be perceived to take a functionalist approach in the explanation of crime. The researchers deduced that deterrence theory envisaged that arrests would deter persons from repeating offenses; on the other hand, labeling theory envisaged that arrests would not deter individuals from making repeat offenses. In addition to introducing outcomes which reinforced victims’ advocates’ desires for a tough and an effective alternative to law enforcement’s role in domestic violence of a spouse, this analysis has since confirmed the impact that scientific analysis can have on law enforcement agencies’ practice and plan. Although the researchers confessed that there may have been challenges in the methodology, they maintain that it created a huge sample (314 cases) with obviously impartial victims’ responses (Sherman and Berk, 1984). The outcomes indicated that the majority of the occurrences happened among married people with low educational background scenes of mixed or minority race. Both victims’ and police records’ interview outcome measures revealed that of the three responses, police arrest created the lowest and separation of the highest recidivism. Imprisonment was so short in most of the situations that the researchers maintained that incapacitation could never have been the motive behind the reduced repeat domestic violence attacks. While the researchers determined that the outcomes demonstrate that police arrest has an obvious deterrent effect; arrest may only work for some violators. On the other hand, The Pate and Hamilton (1992) experiment contributes significantly in understanding the relationship between to arrest and deterrence. Although the use of a population of actual domestic violence on a spouse attack situations precludes the use of very innovative measures of informal social control, the researchers’ purpose was to determine whether marital status or employment status had an impact on arrest on violators. A sample of misdemeanor battery situations were arbitrarily allocated different treatments, police arrest or no police arrest (Pate and Hamilton, 1992). Although in total there no factors in perpetrator’s recidivism was revealed as a result of the two treatments, when breaking down the outcomes based on employment, arrest seemed to have a deterrent effect on employed perpetrators of domestic violence against a spouse. Nevertheless, repeat domestic violence attack was apparent to jobless perpetrators. Marital status revealed no significant difference. The varying deterrent effects suggest that the relationship between arrest and deterrence in cases in which police respond to domestic violence calls, can be termed as vague. References Ferraro, J. (1989). Policing Woman Battering: Social Problem. University of California Press, 36(1), pp. 61-74 Pate, A. and Hamilton, E. (1992). Formal and informal deterrents to domestic violence: The Dade County spouse assault experiment. American Sociological Review, 57, pp.691- 697. Sherman, L. and Berk, R. (1984). The specific deterrent effects of arrest for domestic assault. American Sociological Review, 49, pp.261-272. Read More