Police Adopting a Pro-arrest Policy in Response to Domestic Violence

Abstract

The Domestic Violence Prevention and Control Act was enacted on June 24(superscript th) 1999. This Act signifies about changes in Taiwan society to handle the historically neglected issue and puts the predominate responsibility on police departments. This study proposed to examine what the police's attitudes toward a pro-arrest policy are. This study utilized a police survey (N=1105), sampling areas including six cities and counties. Through police survey, the officer's characteristics, organizational and attitude factors associated with police toward a pro-arrest policy are examined. The findings suggest that less than half of police agreed to adopt a pro-arrest policy; about one-fourth of officers disagreed with such a policy; and another one-fourth did not present their position. The police attitude factor is the most important predictor regarding favorable adoption of the policy. The organizational factor is the second important factor and the office's characteristics are the least important predictors. Examining the specific variables, police viewing domestic violence as crime is the strongest predictor. Rewards policy, colleague perception and officer's willingness are also significantly related to adoption of a pro-arrest policy. Among the police characteristics, only the officer's position variable has significant effects on predicting police adoption inclination. Contradicting prior research in Taiwan, the effect of police gender is not significant in the current study.