Response of Victims and the Police to Assaults on Wives

• NCJ Number: 117798
• Author(s): R J Gelles; G K Kantor; M A Straus
• Date Published: 1989
• Length: 15 pages
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: To be published as a chapter in the authors' book, "Physical Violence in American Families: Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence in 8,145 Families."

Annotation

Using data from the 1985 Family Violence Resurvey, this study examines how often wife beating was reported to the police, the frequency of arrests in such cases, factors related to reporting and arrests, victim strategies to stop the assaults, and police strategies other than arrest.

Abstract

Both the Minor Violence and Severe Violence indexes of the Conflict Tactics Scales were used to measure violence. The percent of victims of minor or severe assaults who reported the violence to the police were cross-tabulated by race, income, employment status, urbanicity, and alcohol use during the violent incident. A total of 3.2 percent of the minor-violence incidents were reported to the police, and 14.4 percent of severe violence was reported. Severity of violence was the most important correlate with domestic-assault reporting. Factors related to economic dependency tended to deter victims from calling the police. Women were significantly more likely to call police when drinking had occurred at the time of the violence. Both calling the police and arrests by police were rare strategies of last resort. Mediation was the typical means of police intervention. 3 tables, 43 references, 2 notes.