Type:	Journal Article
Title:	The influence of legal reform on the probability of arrest in domestic violence cases
Other Titles:	Justice quarterly
Authors:	Garner, Joel Hickman, Laura Simpson, Sally S Bouffard, Leana Allen
Keywords:	Legal issues;CALD (culturally and linguistically diverse);Criminal justice responses;Policing
Topic:	Policing and legal responses
Year:	2006
Publisher:	The Academy
Citation:	23 (3), September 2006
Notes:	General Overview/>: This US study examines whether the enactment of domestic violence legislation and mandatory and preferred arrest policies had an impact on the numbers of perpetrators arrested and convicted and whether it affected the behaviour of police in making those arrests. The authors studied the effect of the introduction of various domestic violence legislative initiatives in Maryland. This includes the ability of police to arrest without a warrant if they had probable cause to believe a violation of a civil protection order had taken place and the expansion of the definition of domestic violence victims to include unmarried parties. One of the hypotheses was that the likelihood of arrest would be different for different groups of people. Objective/>: To determine whether the introduction of legislative reform increases the likelihood over time of being arrested, that is, whether the proportion of incidents that result in arrest increases more than would naturally happen over the same period of time and also whether it increased the number of women arrested. The authors specifically looked at the effect of the legislative reform on police practice and whether the effect of the reform had been uniform across offender and offence characteristics. Method/>: The authors used data collected from police departments, sheriff’s offices and police barracks across Maryland, including data from all domestic violence incidents that were reported to police. The authors used a time series model to provide a statistical test of the hypothesis to account for the natural increase in arrests that might take place over time. Results/>: The study found that there was an increasing likelihood of arrest during the study period and a significant and positive impact on the likelihood of arrest. However, there was less evidence to suggest that the arrest policy affected different groups differently. Males tended to be arrested more than females both before and after the policy was introduced. Arrest rates increased for both after the introduction of the policy. Surprisingly the introduction of the policy did not seem to impact women more than men. African American women were not more likely to be arrested than white women as a result of the policies. The introduction of the policies did not differentially impact on couples who were estranged even though the legislation expanded police powers to include them although the data did not allow a full analysis of this issue. The introduction of the policy did not have a significant effect on the arrest rates for less serious offences as had been expected but arrests simply increased across the board. Neither did the legislation increase the likelihood of arrest if a weapon was involved. The authors discuss data limitations. The authors noted that more people are being arrested since the introduction of legislation but although more women are being arrested over time, this does not seem to be a result of legislative changes. They also noted that it was not possible to tell whether women were being arrested as a result of being caught up in a dual arrest situation or whether there were increasing numbers of women batterers.
URI:	https://anrows.intersearch.com.au/anrowsjspui/handle/1/12292
ISSN:	0741-8825
Appears in Collections:	Journal Articles

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