Background of the Study

Violence women by their domestic partners has become a common incident in modern world which sometimes goes unreported. Women battering is the main cause of the serious physical as well as mental injuries to women. In order to fight this issue of domestic violence against the intimate partners, various state laws have been expanded over thirty years to empower the police with warrantless power to arrest. States have empowered the police to make an arrest, mandatorily, if he or she finds that there is a probable reason to believe that an offence has been committed. In certain cases, it has been observed that mandatory arrests were effective to deter future violence. However, in some other cases, no effectiveness of the mandatory arrests were proved. The law relating to mandatory arrest might have a different result on this issue. Regardless of the various attempts by the Government for public awareness about this issue, such incidents have managed to remain in the larger parts of the United States.

In modern times, the issue of domestic violence against the intimate partners has become a challenging and significant concern for the society. Often, the mandatory laws of arrest in domestic violence cases have responded positively to reduce the incidents of domestic violence. Whereas, sometimes the known law of arrest has affected the decision of the victims to seek the intervention of the police in these cases. It has appeared that the certainty of arrest policy dissuades the victim from seeking the intervention of police by reporting the abuse, as it is known to them that the consequence of police reporting may be the immediate arrest of their intimate partners. For such reasons, it has become important to consider the ultimate effect of the state efforts of mandatory arrest in domestic violence.  

The importance of the mandatory arrest policy has become an issue because the aim to treat and present domestic violence as criminal justice issue. The concern is that the mandatory arrest laws have a different impact on different communities. In various studies it has been found that the African American Women are noticeably reluctant to report domestic violence incidents to the police. They prefer to handle this instances on their own. This may happen because of their higher distrust of the criminal justice system or their belief in the culture of communities.

This is a major concern because mandatory arrest has not always proven to be an effective way to deter the future incidents of domestic violence. The increased rate of arrest was the result of state mandatory laws to arrest in an incident of domestic violence. The aim of this study is to examine the ways the mandatory arrest law has affected the incidents of domestic violence. This study endeavours to provide the impact of mandatory arrest on the issue of domestic violence. This study explains the effectiveness of the mandatory arrest policy of domestic violence. It further analyses the positive as well as negative impacts of the mandatory arrest policy in the United States. Finally, this study concludes with the findings of the research.

Statement of the problem

The aim of this study is to understand the importance of the contribution of mandatory arrest laws in deterring the future incidents of domestic violence focusing on the various experiments conducted on this topic.

The objectives of this research are:

1. To understand the domestic violence arrest laws and its effects.
2. To find out the various means by which mandatory domestic violence arrests have contributed to criminal justice system.

Research Questions

RQ 1. What are the effects of mandatory arrest law to deter future domestic violence?

RQ 2. What are the various means by which the mandatory arrest laws have contributed to criminal justice system?

Research Hypothesis

H_0. The mandatory arrest policy for domestic violence incidents will not result in deterring future domestic violence incidents.

The effects of mandatory arrest law to deter future domestic violence

Attitude towards domestic violence has significantly progressed in the United States in the last several years. In earlier period, the women did not have the independent legal entity after being married to her husband. According to Zelcer (2014), because of this patriarchal viewpoint husband had the right to use physical violence or force to control the behaviour of their wives. He stated that this tradition was continued to the nineteenth century until the Alabama Supreme Court gave their decision against it. In Fulgham v. State, 46 Ala. 143, 1871 WL 1013 (Ala.) , the Alabama Supreme Court restricted the right of the husband to use physical violence over their wives. The law criminalising the spousal abuse was then introduced in Maryland for the first time. Then the family courts were established to field the issues relating to domestic violence. To disseminate the information about domestic partners, President Jimmy Carter established Office of Domestic Violence in the United States Department of Justice. In the case of Castle Rock v Gonzales 545 U.S. 748 (2005), the Supreme Court of United States established a mandatory arrest law stating that law requires police officer to arrest the suspected offender of domestic violence if there is a reasonable cause to believe that the abuse has occurred irrespective of the preference of the victim or the discretion of the officer. There are conflicted views by the advocates on the matter of effectiveness of mandatory arrest policy to eradicate the issue of domestic violence.

Earlier in the Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment conducted in 1984, the effectiveness arrest in any offence was examined. This experiment analysed around 314 incidents of domestic violence. The result of the experiment stated that arrest is the most effective method to deter the domestic violence cases. This findings was published in the New York Times in the month of April 1983, following which the New York Police Commissioner issued an order which required mandatory or preferential arrest in a domestic violence case. Supporting the order, the United States Attorney General issued a report that recommended that arrest is the best law enforcement response to any domestic violence cases. In People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson, ignited the majority of states to enact a mandatory arrest law in domestic violence cases. Mandatory arrest law in domestic violence cases, removes the discretion of a police officer to arrest (Holmes, 2015). These laws has proven to combat the emergence and growth of domestic violence cases in countries. Officers are not required to have seen the violence to issue an arrest under this laws. The widespread awareness about domestic violence has been possible because of the rigid law to arrest the suspect if the officer has the reasonable cause to believe that an offence has occurred. Domestic violence is no longer supported or safeguarded within the private boundaries, it is also considered as a serious crime. Supporters of the effectiveness of this statute argued that such laws effectively send a vital societal message that violence against partners is unacceptable. However, despite this progresses, domestic violence still continues to remain as a profound and pervasive problem.

Rationale of the Research

However, Strom et al., (2014) has argued that in spite of the mandatory arrest laws and its positive effect in deterring the incidents of domestic violence, these laws are not beloved universally. Though the significant purpose of this statutes are powerful, yet in operation, the mandatory arrest policy are both injurious and ineffective. The mandatory arrest policy has significantly resulted in the increased rates of arrest of women. Lee, Zhan & Hoover, (2013), has argued that mandatory arrest has an adverse effect on the women with children. It also discriminates between the poor, immigrant and women belonging from minority groups. Mandatory arrest also possess some procedural challenges.

Messing et al., (2015) has argued that mandatory arrest policy has failed to prove to be effective as a means for reducing the domestic violence. The Minneapolis experiment did not examine the long-term effect of mandatory arrest of the repeat offenders. The effect of arrest in most of the cases, starts to disappear by the end of six to eight months. In another experiment financed by the National Institute of Justice in Omaha, Nebraska, it was found that there was no evidence which proves that mandatory arrest deters batterers. Rather, it was found that in some cases, recidivism occurred with increased violence after the release of the offenders. It was observed by Çelik (2013), that mandatory arrest is responsible for causing disempowerment to the women. He argued that this statutes have failed to consider the preference of the victim in regard to the arrest. Many of the partners do not want their other half to be arrested because of the domestic violence. Some women merely use the intervention of the police as a threat to use control over their abusive spouse. Mandatory arrest statutes, takes away the opportunity from the battered women. It often happens that the offenders are arrested against the request or wish of their wives. It subjects the women to the presumption that state has better control over their spousal relationship than the victim. As a result of fact, women lose control over their spousal affairs. They are deprived of their own healing process in this cases. The arrest becomes a temporary solution if the women did not have an active role in making the decision to get her abusive partner arrested.

In addition to this, Tatum & Pence (2015) argued that mandatory arrest statutes has led to an increased number of arrested women. In which states that mandatory arrest policy has been adopted, the number of arrest of women has increased. A confusion arises when the police has to decide who the primary or initial aggressor was. Mandatory arrest policy has led to dual arrests in certain situations. In some of the domestic violence cases, the victim was the primary aggressor. If the women was the arrested for being abusive, they lose access to the battered women shelters for a temporary period. They are not even granted the protection of automatic restraining order. The fear of arrest of both the partners or dual arrest provides disincentive to ask for the intervention of the police. Mandatory arrest policy cause a difficulty for the women with children. If the women are arrested, the law relating to child custody disfavour the mother. Even if the mother was the victim of violence, children may be removed from the home after the incident. Compulsory involvement of state is not sufficient for improving the lives of women materially. The fear of losing the custody of a child may deter the women from calling the police.

Research aims and objectives

Mandatory arrest law have often negative effects on the poor, immigrant and the women belonging from minority communities. Mandatory arrest have a very negative effect based on the race of women. Among the American communities, arrest laws reduces the frequency of repeat offences in half. Whereas, in African American women, mandatory arrest increases the repeat violence by about one third (Sherman & Harris, 2015). In this group, arrest encourages the rates of severity of the violence within the batterers who engages in such violent behaviour repeatedly. This is often regarded as the proud and angry effect. Repeat violence is often noticed among the unemployed people. However, the result is opposite within the employed people. Therefore, mandatory arrest statute have an adverse effect on the poor communities which have a higher than average unemployment rates. Minority women also face threats of dual arrests and police brutality, which prevents them from reporting any violence. The immigrant women also faces the chilling effect of mandatory arrest. They have the fear of deportation in their mind if they report an incident of violence. They feel that if their partners are convicted in a domestic violence offence, they will be dragged out of the country. The threat of cultural isolation as a result of arrest prevents and discourages the immigrant women from reporting the incident of domestic violence to the police. Mandatory arrest law, imposes a high cost upon the minority, immigrant and poor women.

Gover et al., (2013) found that the unnecessary procedural challenges in mandatory arrests laws causes substantial harms to the victims. As the office of the District Attorney lack the sufficient resources to pursue a weaker case, the individuals arrested in the mandatory arrest states are not always prosecuted. Each process of arrest takes about three to four hours, which increases the costs of the public agencies. The mandatory arrest policies for every domestic violence incidents cost the local government to invest millions of dollars for the additional police, court services, jails and prosecutions. This is also a reason behind the overcrowding in jails. As a result, the mandatory arrest statute exacerbate recidivism andalso causes other consequences for women.

The various means by which the mandatory arrest laws have contributed to criminal justice system

Victims seeking intervention of the police is the first agency of contact of the issue with criminal justice system. Without the report of the incidents, the issue of domestic violence goes unnoticed. Mandatory arrest, in some of the cases, has successfully reduced the rate of incidents and provided the victims with the statutory framework. Modern criminal justice system has taken an active part to eradicate the issue of violence against women. In Thurman v City of Torrington (1984) the right to get police protection in a case of domestic violence was ensured. In 1994 the Violence against Women Act was introduced, which justified grants to support the pro-arrest policies in various states. As a part of this major concern, U.S. Police Department has adopted the mandatory arrest laws for spousal violence cases which have probable cause to arrest. The District of Columbia and 23 states, by the end of 2005, had enacted and adopted mandatory arrest for domestic violence, without any warrant (Corvo & Spitzmueller,  2017).  

Research Questions

However, it was argued that the opportunity to alternative reforms were dismissed because of the immediate intervention of the police. This laws present a desire to adopt a punitive approach to the incidents of violence.

Research philosophy in this study was to analyse and evaluate the study in detail. Three types of research philosophy is there, which are, realism, interpretivism and positivism. As per Vaioleti (2016), to develop a detailed and in-depth analysis of any study, positivism research philosophy is most effective. To examine and evaluate the contribution of mandatory arrest law in deterring future incidents of domestic violence, interpretivism research philosophy has been selected.

As stated by Panneerselvam (2014) research design refers to the action of specific method of data collection and analysis. There are three types of research designs, namely, the analytical, explanatory and exploratory. Out of these three designs, analytical research design is used to analyse and understand a study in a descriptive way. The exploratory research design helps to analyse the concept in the initial stage of the study and the exploratory research design helps to analyse and develop a relation between the two considerable variations of this study (Flick, 2015). It was found by Ledford & Gast (2018) that objectives and data requirements must be defined in conclusive study. Analytical research design is used in this study to gain the detail idea of mandatory arrest laws in relation to deterring future incidents of domestic violence.

Two kinds of data collection methods are used to evaluate a study, namely primary and secondary data collection. This study will be evaluated based on the secondary data collection method. Data for this study has been collected from the offline resources like books, journal and newspaper articles.

In order to evaluate the qualitative data, the collected data shall be evaluated with the help of a framework analysis, which consists stages like identification of thematic framework, familiarization, and interpretation.

The qualitative data collection method in this present study indicates the limitation of the study that the analysis should be made on the basis of the secondary data. Additionally, the availability of the journals related with the issue was limited in number. It also faces certain limitation regarding the budget and time.

Ethical issues are the major challenges in the way of evaluating academic study, specifically, if the study has to deal with a huge set of secondary data collected from books and journals. The researcher ensure that the data sources are properly acknowledged and no information has been tampered in this study.

Conclusion

The problem of future domestic violence cannot be completely deterred with the help of mandatory arrest statutes, as mandatory arrest laws have certain serious drawbacks. This research specifically identifies those drawbacks in the mandatory arrest laws with the help of secondary research. This paper shows that the implications of mandatory arrest laws in domestic violence cases have resulted in the reduction of report of this kind of violence, though the issue has managed to prevail in the society. Therefore, a strict law is required to replace this statute which creates a fear in the mind of the victims. This research concludes that mandatory arrest is not sufficient to combat the issue, rather an effective law is required to prohibit the source of domestic violence. This research would be useful for any future research in this field. This report suggests that the policy or practice to deter future domestic violence should focus on the root cause of the crime rather than making arrest after its occurrence. Future, practices or policies developed on the basis of the outcome of this research will be helpful to eradicate domestic violence. This research will be helpful for considering the removal of the issue from its root cause.

Reference

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Castle Rock v Gonzales 545 U.S. 748 (2005)

Corvo, K., & Spitzmueller, M. (2017). Domestic violence policy, forensic mental health, and the revival of rehabilitation: crossroads or cross purposes. Partner abuse, 8(3), 315-328.

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Fulgham v. State, 46 Ala. 143, 1871 WL 1013 (Ala.)

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