NCJ Number
106984
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 11 Issue: 3 Dated: (September 1987) Pages: 167-264
Date Published
1987
Length
18 pages
Annotation
This paper reviews the criminal justice response to wife assault. By establishing a set of conditional probabilities for the reporting, detection, prosecution, and conviction for wife assault, the paper establishes that a 'winnowing process' occurs that is not dissimilar to that reported for other crimes.
Abstract
The probability of wife assault being detected by the criminal justice system is about 6.5 percent. Given that it is detected, the probability of arrest is about 21.2 percent. Subsequent conditional probabilities for conviction and punishment generate and aggregate probability that, given that an event of wife assault occurs, the perpetrator has a 0.38 percent chance of being punished by the courts. The policy implications of this review are that the greatest impact on wife assault recidivism reduction would be generated by police arrest rates regardless of court outcome. It is concluded that too little is known of the subjective states of wife assaulters to ascertain whether deterrence or some other mechanism accounts for the decreased recidvism reported after arrest. 4 tables and 60 references. (Author abstract modified)