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Discussions of the police response to domestic violence often assume that domestic disturbance calls typically involve criminal violence by a man against a woman, and that the best way to respond is by arresting the assailant. After reviewing the research on the context of the low rates of arrest for domestic violence, we suggest that the police response may be as much due to the situational features of domestic disturbances as to broader sociocultural factors, and that an exclusive reliance on arrest to deal with disturbances may provide a rationalization for the police to do nothing in many instances. Crisis intervention, if understood as involv ing skills and services that may be needed by victims, should be viewed as a complimentary response to arrest, but may be the only possible response when arrest is not an option.

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