NCJ Number
100299
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 9 Issue: 4 Dated: (December 1985) Pages: 355-366
Date Published
1985
Length
12 pages
Annotation
The impact of legal and extralegal information on 26 male and 10 female patrol officers' decisionmaking policies for wife abuse was investigated using regression analysis.
Abstract
Individual differences in officers' propensity to arrest abusive husbands also were examined. Police officers made responsibility and prescriptive judgments based on simulated police reports describing seven types of information. These included occupation, history of wife abuse, assailant's behavior toward police, extent of victim injury, drinking by assailant and/or victim, and verbal antagonism. Analyses indicate that victims' extralegal behavior generally was the primary determinant of responsibility assigned to both victim and assailant. Intoxication was a particularly salient factor in responsibility attributions. However, legal prescriptions were based primarily on legally relevant information such as presence of injury and assailant demeanor toward police. Although 36 percent of the 56 victims were depicted as seriously injured, 50 percent of the officers did not prescribe arrest consistently under these conditions, and 58 percent prescribed arrest under no other conditions. Implications are discussed. 26 references. (Author abstract modified)