Policing Woman Battering

Abstract

In the 1980s, many states and cities mandated police officers to arrest men who batter women in family disputes. This observational study of a large metropolitan police department shows that in spite of the presumptive arrest policy, officers made arrests in only 18 percent of assaults involving intimate partners. Case material illustrates how legal, ideological, practical, and political factors led police to ignore the presumptive arrest policy when responding to family disputes.