EXAMPLE 3.35 Reducing Domestic Violence

How should police respond to domestic-violence calls? In the past, the usual practice was to remove the offender and order the offender to stay out of the household overnight. Police were reluctant to make arrests because the victims rarely pressed charges. Women’s groups argued that arresting offenders would help prevent future violence even if no charges were filed. Is there evidence that arrest will reduce future offenses? That’s a question that experiments have tried to answer.

A typical domestic-violence experiment compares two treatments: arrest the suspect and hold the suspect overnight or warn and release the suspect. When police officers reach the scene of a domestic-violence call, they calm the participants and investigate. Weapons or death threats require an arrest. If the facts permit an arrest but do not require it, an officer radios headquarters for instructions. The person on duty opens the next envelope in a file prepared in advance by a statistician. The envelopes contain the treatments in random order. The police either make an arrest or warn and release, depending on the contents of the envelope. The researchers then watch police records and visit the victim to see if the domestic violence reoccurs.

Such experiments show that arresting domestic-violence suspects does reduce their future violent behavior.³⁵ As a result of this evidence, arrest has become the common police response to domestic violence.