The Impact of Relationship Status, Gender, and Minor Status in the Police Response to Domestic Assaults

What does Research Suggest are the Primary Risk and Protective Factors for Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and What is the Role of Economic Factors?

“…Most researchers do report that IPV offenders and victims have substance abuse and addiction problems at far higher rates than the general population, even controlling for other sociodemographic variables (see Johnson, ). In addition, substance abuse appears to be a significant factor for reoffending independent of criminal history (Buzawa & Hotaling, ). These findings suggest that this group of offenders may not be career criminals, but instead have through substance abuse or other situational factors lost their normal self‐regulatory inhibiting violence.…”

“…Nor is it intuitively obvious why economic assistance for the current relationship would prevent them from entering future abusive relationships. Finally, if the purpose is to provide economic assistance so that the victim would leave her current abuser, it is those victims with a history of extensive prior victimization that often are the most resistant to leaving an offender (Buzawa & Hotaling, ).…”

Explaining Gender Differences in Police Arresting and Charging Behavior in Cases of Spousal Violence

“…Other explanations stress the differences in injuries between men and women involved in domestic violence, the physical strength differences between men and women (Felson, 1996), and others contend that men perceive that the police will not be as responsive to them as victims. A study of intimate partner arrests in the northeastern United States found that police were signifi cantly less likely to provide male victims with information on their legal rights and how to access services (Buzawa & Hotaling, 2006). Another study found that, although men were categorized as offenders 3.2 to 3.5 times more often as women, they were arrested 9 times more often (Shernock, 2005).…”

Chivalry Revisited

“…Concerns regarding victim safety and cooperation, for example, may be different for nonintimate family violence cases. Alternatively, Buzawa and Hotaling (2006) suggested that juvenile-perpetrated family violence may elicit concerns regarding defiance of authority figures, leading to increased likelihood of arrest and processing. Future research should examine whether case, victim, and defendant factors differentially influence decision-making in family violence and IPV cases.…”