No abstract

The assumption that police are relatively lenient with men who assault their spouses has led several U.S. political jurisdictions to enact mandatory arrest-for-wife-assault legislation. Although the leniency thesis underlying this legislation is widely believed, it is directly addressed by only three studies of varying rigor and generalizability. With new data, the present research uses multivariate techniques to reexamine the hypothesis that police are less aggressive in arresting wife assaulters, with results that support the leniency thesis. In addition, results suggest that police are more likely to arrest if the victim of spousal violence is a woman who is affluent, White, older, or suburban. The implications of these findings for mandatory arrest laws, crime control, and the debate on race and crime are discussed.

This paper is a sequel to Avakame (1998), a study which sought to determine whether (a) violence in families of origin affects males’ psychological aggression toward wives, and (b) whether the intergenerational transmission effect is solely direct or mediated by Gottfredson and Hirschi’s concept of self-control. The current research extends these questions to females’ psychological aggression as well as males’ and females’ physical violence. The models were estimated using data from the 1975 National Family Violence Survey. Like its precursor, results of the present research suggest that it is useful to (a) distinguish between mothers’ and fathers’ violence and (b) recognize that the intergenerational transmission of violence may be mediated by self-control. Specifically, results suggested that, whether considering physical violence or psychological aggression, fathers’ violence is most likely to exert the direct social learning effect.