Mandatory Arrest Research

The law enforcement’s response to domestic violence remains a closely studied topic among researchers and policymakers. Beginning in the 1970s, domestic violence policy reforms swept the nation as a result of political pressure exerted by women advocate groups (Xie & Lynch, 2016). Within ten years, mandatory arrests policies were enacted in states across the U.S. with the purpose of reducing intimate partner violence. In light of the newly enacted mandatory arrest policies, a surge of research emerged with the aim of determining whether arrest policies were efficient in reducing and deterring acts of intimate partner violence (Novisky & Peralta, 2014).
The most influential study to propose arrest had a deterrent effect on subsequent intimate