Domestic Violence Case Study

According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, domestic violence can best be defined as violent or aggressive behavior, such as rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggressive or simple assault, committed by an offender within the home, therefore, generally involving the violent abuse of a spouse, partner, or family member (Truman and Morgan, 2014). On average, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, about twenty people per minute are physically assaulted by an intimate partner in the Untied States; therefore, in one year alone, this equates to be about more than ten million men and women becoming a victim of domestic abuse. Over the most recent decades, domestic violence has steadily declined since 1994 by about sixty three percent, however, intimate partner violent continues to account for about fifteen percent of all violent crime (Truman and Morgan, 2014). In the recent ten year period of 2003-12, domestic violence nevertheless accounted for about twenty one percent of all violent victimizations, which accumulated to over 1,400,000 crimes, within the United States (Truman and Morgan, 2014). Domestic violence clearly remains to be an extremely relevant issue in society today. It was not until recently that the legal system deemed domestic violence to

Sherman and Berk (1984) conducted a study with the Minneapolis Police Department in which supported this very notion. Based upon victim interviews, Sherman and Berk (1984) noted that following the initial course or action of either physical separation, mandatory arrest, or officer mediation that recidivism rates were the lowest following mandatory arrest at nineteen percent; therefore, concluding that arrest and initial incarceration do in fact produce a deterrent effect in domestic assault