NCJ Number
95446
Journal
Symbolic Interaction Volume: 6 Issue: 2 Dated: (1983) Pages: 261-278
Date Published
1983
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This article examines the interactive domestic strategies used by police to deal with domestic disturbances.
Abstract
Data came from 6 months of participant observation and interviews with the officers of a police department employing 61 officers. The officers had preconceptions about the types of actors and settings they were likely to encounter in domestic disputes as well as desirable intervention outcomes. Their preference was not to make an arrest. Instead, they tried to restore order by manipulating the setting, the actors, and the situation so as to permit a justifiable exit. Their efforts reflected bureaucratic rather than therapeutic requirements. To the officers, quietude, separation of the disputants, and acquiescence were signs of restored order. However, the disputants were more likely to view order over the long term. To them, real order would be a remediated future. The officers tried to do something to the situation rather than for the disputants regarding the underlying relational problems, which the officers viewed as outside their occupational jurisdiction. Forty-seven references are listed.