Police handling of domestic calls: The importance of offender's presence in the arrest decision

Abstract

Though much has been written about the correlates associated with the police decision to arrest when responding to domestic incidents, the current literature is almost completely silent about the effect of offender's presence on disposition. Using police records from one large jurisdiction in South Florida, this research investigates differences between offenders who are present when police arrive and those who are absent in terms of offender, victim, and situational characteristics. Consistent with prior research, this study found that 48 percent of domestic violent offenders were absent when police arrived. Furthermore, offender's presence was found to be the most powerful predictor of an arrest outcome.