Domestic Violence and the Police: Theory, Policy and Practice (From Family Violence: Emerging Issues of a National Crisis, P 127-141, 1989, Leah J Dickstein and Carol C Nadelson, eds. -- See NCJ-114238)

• NCJ Number: 114243
• Author(s): P J Mancuso
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 15 pages
• Sale Source: American Psychiatric Press, Inc
• Publication Type: Historical Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter traces police policy toward family disputes from the 1960's to the present.

Abstract

With the establishment of family courts came the first large-scale deployment of police policy around domestic violence issues. Family disputes were thus handled by the police outside the purview of criminal law through social resources secured through the family courts, with the exception of homicide and attempted homicide. In the late 1960's, Morton Bard proposed family crisis intervention (FCI), which emphasizes separating the disputing parties, allowing each to 'ventilate verbally' toward the officer, offering encouragement, mediating, and referring disputants to appropriate social agencies. Although arrest was not discounted under the FCI model, it was considered a last resort. FCI has not been as effective as hoped because of the requisite lengthy training for officers and the general inadequacy of services to which officers refer parties. For the past decade, the movement toward mandatory arrest by domestic violence advocacy groups has influenced police, as has a Minneapolis study that shows the relative effectiveness of arrest in reducing domestic assault recidivism. Such a policy has improved police records on domestic violence and thus enhances monitoring practices. 5 references.