If You Want to Convict a Domestic Violence Batterer, List Multiple Charges in the Police Report

Abstract

Problem: Even though reforms in the past 40 years mandated police response to domestic violence (DV) crime, and in many states also mandated arrest, never-the-less baseline rates of DV prosecution remain low. Background: The nature of prosecution is reviewed, noting that nearly all criminal cases are resolved through plea bargaining in state and federal cases. Thus, the nature of plea bargaining is examined from a perspective of negotiable currency. Past research demonstrates that if multiple crimes are described and listed in the first responding police officer’s written report, there is a substantially greater odds that the suspect will be prosecuted and found guilty. Those extra charges can be dropped by prosecutors in exchange for a plea of guilt. Purpose: This empirical study examines a discretionary best practices crime investigation method that can be operationalized by first responding police officers, in situ, to determine whether its use leads to a significant increase in rates of prosecution and criminal conviction for DV crime. The methodology is the choice to thoroughly investigate each DV crime to uncover concurrent and also past-but-still-chargeable crimes. This optional work is time-consuming because children, neighbors, the 911 caller, and others must be contacted and interviewed. Method: Randomly selected police reports ( n = 366) were found to contain 22 combinations of crime codes listed as violations, for DV and other concurrent crimes. The reports were evaluated on a number of prosecutorial outcomes. Frequency statistics were calculated, and logistic regression was used to confirm key relationships. Results: Only one third of all submitted reports listed more than one crime. For those investigations that did lead to prosecution, 97% resolved through plea bargaining. Most single charge misdemeanor DV police reports were found to be “dead upon arrival” at the prosecutor’s office, with only 29% resulting in any type of criminal conviction. Conversely, reports that list four crimes have a 100% rate of conviction. Three quarters of all “felony” DV, as labeled by police, either resulted in no criminal prosecution or prosecution as a misdemeanor. This replicates a finding of the California State Attorney General who reported a serious problem with police regularly inflating DV charges. Police routinely failed to list children as victims (4% of investigations), even though they could have been listed about 61% to 86% of the time. Conclusions: There is substantial room for investigative improvement by police. A number of easily added crime codes are reviewed in the discussion section. The importance of sergeants sending officers back to the scene of the DV crime, while it is still warm and witnesses and additional evidence are still available is discussed. The article concludes with a prediction: As rates of listing more than one crime in police reports increases, there should follow a significant and permanent increase in rates of prosecution and criminal conviction for DV crime.