The challenge
Police and lawmakers needed to know whether arresting suspects in misdemeanour domestic assault cases protects victims, a question that bears on state-level mandatory arrest laws.
The case
In 1987–88 Milwaukee Police enrolled 1,125 victims of misdemeanour domestic violence (89% female, 70% African-American, mean age 30) in an experiment in which their abusers were randomly assigned to arrest or a warning, with 98% treated as assigned. Twenty-three years later, Lawrence Sherman and Heather Harris gathered state and national death data on all the victims. Victims were 64% more likely to have died of all causes if their partners had been arrested and jailed than if warned and allowed to remain at home. Among the 791 African-American victims, arrest increased mortality by 98%; among the 334 white victims, by only 9%. Murder caused only three of the 91 deaths; heart disease and other internal morbidity caused most.
Why it didn't work
The authors say partner arrests 'apparently increased premature death for their victims', call for replications and detailed risk-factor studies to confirm the findings, and say the conclusions may support repeal or judicial invalidation of state mandatory arrest laws.
Sources
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