Patterns of arrest in domestic violence encounters: Identifying a police decision-making model

✍ Scribed by Robert J Kane

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1999
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 89 KB
• Volume: 27
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0047-2352
• DOI: 10.1016/s0047-2352(98)00037-3

✦ Synopsis

Arrest patterns of police officers in domestic violence events were explored for a stratified random sample of domestic violence incidents (from police reports) in two police districts in Boston for the calendar year 1993. The initial analytic strategy used was the chi-square automatic interaction detector, which conducts segmentation modeling useful for identifying interaction effects among a predefined set of variables. The interaction effects were then entered into several logistic regression models to generate odds ratios in the predictions of arrest. Results showed that risk to the victim is the most important decision-making criterion for officers, and that officers use variable pieces of information in deciding when to make arrests in domestic violence events based on the different levels of risk.