Failure of the Mandatory Domestic Violence Reporting Law to Increase Medical Facility Referral to Police

Domestic violence in emergency medicine patients

“…These laws probably do not increase the reporting of domestic violence. 45 Some experts feel that merely asking a question should be regarded as a meaningful step, as it may indicate to a victim that help is available. It may also reduce the feeling of helplessness that occurs in victims.…”

Mandatory Reporting of Intimate Partner Violence: Safety or Retaliatory Abuse for Women?

“…In a previous qualitative study, 71% of abused women admitted lying or withholding information about the nature of their injuries when they sought medical care. 10 Sachs et al 16 evaluated California's 1994 mandatory reporting law and did not find an increase in medical personnel reporting domestic violence to the law enforcement agency. Additionally, more than half (59%) of California primary care and emergency physicians who participated in a survey reported they might not comply with the IPV mandatory reporting law if a patient objected.…”

Effectiveness of anonymised information sharing and use in health service, police, and local government partnership for preventing violence related injury: experimental study and time series analysis

“…In one study, the introduction of mandatory reporting of domestic violence did not increase reporting. 11 Moreover, the motivation for such legislation has been improvement of services for victims and increasing detection of offenders rather than to inform and drive violence prevention at the community level. 12 International comparisons have shown that only a proportion of all violent offences are reported to the police and that only a proportion that are reported result in police recording.…”