This dissertation examined extralegal factors that predicted the likelihood of victim non-cooperation in domestic violence incidents and whether the type of arrest policy influenced the odds of non-cooperation when the nature of the victim/offender relationship and the type of domestic assault were considered. National Incident Based Reporting System data (2003) was used to investigate whether there was evidence contained in the incident level data routinely reported by law enforcement that would reliably predict whether a victim would be unwilling to cooperate with police in an incident of domestic violence. The multivariate analyses used incident characteristics as predictors of victim non-cooperation with the police at the scene, including offender demographics, number of offenders, presence of a weapon, incident location, number of victims, victim demographics, victim injury, victim's relationship to the offender, and incident clearance method. The victims domestic relationship to the offender was characterized as a family relationship (related by blood or marriage) or an intimate relationship. Logistic regression was employed to determine whether there was evidence contained in the that would reliably predict that a victim would be unwilling to cooperate with law enforcement and whether that evidence was influenced by the restrictiveness of the domestic violence arrest policy. The major finding of this study was that the victim's relationship to the offender played a central role in determining the likelihood of non-cooperation. The odds of a victim not cooperating with police increased significantly if the victim was an intimate partner versus a family member; these odds increased with the restrictiveness of the arrest policy. For incidents involving domestic violence, states typically use civil code to define the victim's relationship to the offender and criminal code to define the offense. The current trend among states' amending constitutions in order to define legally recognized civil relationships could affect whether or not domestic violence laws will apply to unmarried individuals in intimate relationships. Changes resulting in the legal exclusion of intimate victims from the protections of domestic violence legislation in a state may affect victim decision making, perhaps reducing the number of such incidents that come to the attention of law enforcement.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-10182007-154527 |
| Date | 05 December 2007 |
| Creators | Stahl, Anne L. |
| Contributors | Phyllis Coontz, Ph.D., Meda Chesney-Lind, Ph.D., Louise K. Comfort, Ph.D., Lisa Nelson, Ph.D., J.D. |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-10182007-154527/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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