Spouse Assault Replication Project

Background

In 1984, Sherman and Berk's Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment was widely publicized. It was the first research to employ randomization to compare the effectiveness of different police responses to domestic violence. They found, according to victims' and official reports, that arrest for misdemeanor domestic violence was significantly more effective than other police actions in reducing repeated violence. Many people called for replications of this influential research to determine whether the Minneapolis study's results could be reproduced in other settings because jurisdictions vary widely in both law and actual police behavior in response to domestic violence.

Methods

The five studies were completed from 1986 to 1990. All of them randomly assigned police responses to cases in which there was probable cause for a misdemeanor (a crime with less injury or threat of serious harm than a felony) arrest. Most of the studies excluded cases when the suspect was gone, the victim wanted an arrest, the police thought arrest was necessary to ensure the safety of the victim, or a restraining order or warrant had been issued. They varied in whether the parties involved must have been married or have lived together for some part of the year preceding the incident, in whether both the victim and the abuser had to be present when police came, and in whether the incident had to involve an assault.

In each study, cases were randomly assigned to a variety of responses, including arrest, separation, and mediation. The Omaha study included a sub-study on the effects of issuing a warrant for offenders who were absent when the police arrived. In other jurisdictions, police responses included [Page 686]warnings, advice, issuing emergency protective orders, or issuing a citation for the offender to appear in court. The consequences of arrest varied in terms of length of time the offenders were held in jail, and rates of prosecution of abusers varied between sites from 1% to 35%.

The researchers used data from police reports and victim interviews to determine rates of reoffense. Victim interviews are important because many domestic violence incidents do not result in police reports. However, finding and interviewing victims can be difficult. Only 70% of victims had a first interview within about a month after the incident, and only 63% were interviewed about 6 months later.

...