Research Catalog

Title

Policing domestic violence : experiments and dilemmas / Lawrence W. Sherman with Janell D. Schmidt and Dennis P. Rogan.

Author

Sherman, Lawrence W.

Publication

New York : Free Press ; Toronto : Maxwell Macmillan Canada ; New York : Maxwell Macmillan International, c1992.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Additional Authors

• Rogan, Dennis P.
• Schmidt, Janell D.

Description

xvi, 443 p. : ill.; 25 cm.

Summary

Written for criminal justice personnel, elected officials, victims' rights advocates, policy analysts, and scholars, this volume analyzes the findings and policy implications of a multi-year Federal research program to repeat the 1984 Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment, the first controlled test of the effects of arrest on recidivism. The experiment was undertaken to analyze the effects of police responses to misdemeanor domestic violence. It was based on the assumption that the main goal of police intervention is to reduce the risk of repeat violence by the suspect against the same victim in the future. The results revealed that arrest was more effective in accomplishing this goal than was mediation or sending the suspect out of the home for the night. The experiment was repeated in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Miami, Florida; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Omaha, Nebraska; and Charlotte, North Carolina. Findings revealed that arrest deters selectively. Thus, it effectively inhibits some offenders, but it incites more violence in others. It may also deter batterers for a month or so, only to make them more violent later. Its effects are also related to the victim's socioeconomic status. Findings indicated the need to replace mandatory arrest policies with policies that provide more options and that reflect the findings of recent research.

Subject

• Arrest > United States
• Domestic Violence
• Family violence > United States
• Police > United States
• Spouse Abuse
• United States
• Wife abuse > United States

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 407-428) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Preface -- Acknowledgments -- 1. Does arrest deter domestic violence? -- 2. Police violence, domestic or not -- 3. Why are controlled experiments important? -- 4. The Minneapolis experiment -- 5. The replication dilemma : turning research into policy -- 6. The different communities dilemma : six more experiments -- 7. The different folks dilemma : deter some, escalate others -- 8. The timing dilemma : danger now or danger later? -- 9. The chronic cases dilemma : privacy or prevention? -- 10. Controlling domestic violence -- Appendix 1. The Minneapolis domestic violence experiment / Lawrence W. Sherman and Richard A. Berk -- Appendix 2. The Milwaukee domestic violence experiment / Lawrence W. Sherman, Janell D. Schmidt, Dennis P. Rogan, Douglas A. Smith, Patrick R. Gartin, Dean J. Collins, Anthony R. Bacich, and Ellen G. Cohn -- Section 1. Constructing a social experiment -- Section 2. Three police responses : not a Rashomon story -- Section 3. From initial deterrence to long-term escalation : short-custody arrest for poverty ghetto domestic violence -- Section 4. Crime, punishment, and stakes in conformity : legal and extralegal control of domestic violence -- Notes -- References -- Index.

ISBN

0029287316

LCCN

^^^92017545^

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library