The Role of Crisis Intervention in the Police Response to Domestic Disturbances

Abstract

Discussions of the police response to domestic violence often assume that domestic disturbance calls typically involve criminal violence by a man against a woman, and that the best way to respond is by arresting the assailant. After reviewing the research on the context of the low rates of arrest for domestic violence, we suggest that the police response may be as much due to the situational features of domestic disturbances as to broader sociocultural factors, and that an exclusive reliance on arrest to deal with disturbances may provide a rationalization for the police to do nothing in many instances. Crisis intervention, if understood as involv ing skills and services that may be needed by victims, should be viewed as a complimentary response to arrest, but may be the only possible response when arrest is not an option.

Silenced Voices and Structured Survival

“…Although there has been widespread implementation of proarrest and mandatory arrest policies during the past two decades, in large part because of Sherman and Berk's (1984) policing experiment, such efforts have been critiqued as to their appropriateness in specific situations and their effectiveness at deterring future violence. Specifically, studies suggest that situational factors, such as the officer's beliefs about the likelihood of future violence, seriousness of the assault, victim's willingness to cooperate with the criminal justice system, suspect's demeanor, and whether the suspect was present at the time the police arrived at the scene, have been correlated with arrest rates (Feder, 1996(Feder, , 1999Kane, 1999;McKean & Hendricks, 1997). Further research has found that the race of the perpetrator and victim affects how officers interpret these factors (Robinson & Chandek, 2000) as well as the characteristics and beliefs of responding officers (Feder, 1997;Saunders, 1995;Stith, 1990).…”

Evaluation of a Police and Social Services Domestic Violence Program

“…Women often seek temporary sepa-ration from the offender and want their partner arrested only to stop violence (Hoyle & Sanders, 2000). In the Omaha replication, 60% of the women whose abusers were arrested did not want the arrest (McKean & Hendricks, 1997). Moreover, mandatory or presumptive arrest policies have been adopted by many jurisdictions across the nation.…”

“…Fleury, Sullivan, Bybee, and Davidson (1998a) cited earlier studies (Gamache, Edleson, & Schock, 1988;Langan & Innes, 1986) indicating that a coordinated community response could help protect victims of domestic abuse. Indeed, McKean and Hendricks (1997) pointed out that when arrest is not an option, the only effective response may be that provided by social service response teams.…”

Measuring the impact of a domestic violence coordinated response team

“…They suggested that advocates, police and judges give domestic violence victims a higher priority. McKean and Hendricks (1997) examined the role of crisis intervention in the response to domestic violence. They concluded that crisis intervention for victims should be used in conjunction with arrest, yet becomes even more important in those cases where arrest is not an option.…”