Does anyone think the same relationship will surface between the extreme punishments in Jessica's Law and the safety of children?

Op-Ed Contributor
The Protection Battered Spouses Don�t Need

By RADHA IYENGAR
Cambridge, Mass.

TWO decades ago, in an effort to curb domestic violence, states began passing �mandatory arrest� laws. Police officers responding to a call for help would no longer need to determine whether one person was truly violent or out of control; every time someone reported abuse, the police would simply be required to make an arrest.

It seemed like a good tactic � at least to people who work with victims of domestic violence. (Police officers tended to be less enthusiastic, because they prefer to make arrests at their own discretion.) Arrests would immediately stop the violence and might discourage abusers from further acts of abuse.

But 20 years later, it seems the mandatory arrest laws are having an unintended, deadly side effect. The number of murders committed by intimate partners is now significantly higher in states with mandatory arrest laws than it is in other states.

Support for the laws began in 1984, after a federal district court in Connecticut ruled that the police had inadequately protected a woman whose husband had brutally assaulted her. State lawmakers decided they needed more control over how local police departments enforced restraining orders against abusers and intervened in incidents of violence. One way to get that control was to dictate how the police should respond in each case.

A small but influential study of police responses to domestic violence calls, conducted by criminologists in Minnesota in the early 1980s, found that arrests were the most effective strategy for reducing future violence. Now, 22 states and the District of Columbia have laws that mandate or at least strongly recommend that everyone accused of domestic abuse be arrested.

What the laws did not take into account was that eventually the victims of violence would come to realize that if they called the police, their abuser would certainly be arrested. And over the years, it turns out, that realization seems to have led victims to contact the police less.

I recently conducted my own study of mandatory arrest laws by comparing the rates of murders by intimate partners before and after the laws went into effect. Intimate partner homicides have generally decreased in the past 20 years, perhaps because greater awareness of the problem of domestic violence has led to the creation of more resources for victims. But in states with mandatory arrest laws, the homicides are about 50 percent higher today than they are in states without the laws.

The mandatory arrest laws were intended to impose a cost on abusers. But because of psychological, emotional and financial ties that often keep victims loyal to their abusers, the cost of arrest is easily transferred from abusers to victims. Victims want protection, but they do not always want to see their partners put behind bars.

In some cases, victims may favor an arrest, but fear that their abusers will be quickly released. And many victims may avoid calling the police for fear that they, too, will be arrested for physically defending themselves. The possibility of such �dual arrests� is most worrisome for victims who have children at home.

The situation is different in incidents in which abuse is suffered by people who are not intimate partners � children, for example. The certainty of arrest does nothing to deter the reporting of such cases, usually by teachers, doctors or other third parties. In fact, my research shows that in states with mandatory arrest laws there are fewer murders of non-intimate-partner family members than there are in states without the laws.

Despite two decades of increased public awareness, domestic violence remains a serious problem. Arresting abusers is often desirable, as are efforts to educate the police about domestic violence and effective intervention and to provide treatment and support for victims. But it makes no sense to keep following a strategy that discourages victims from reporting abuse.

Radha Iyengar is a fellow in health policy research at Harvard.

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I recently conducted my own study of mandatory arrest laws by comparing the rates of murders by intimate partners before and after the laws went into effect. Intimate partner homicides have generally decreased in the past 20 years, perhaps because greater awareness of the problem of domestic violence has led to the creation of more resources for victims. But in states with mandatory arrest laws, the homicides are about 50 percent higher today than they are in states without the laws.

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This description of her analysis says nothing about how the homicide rates in those states compared before the changes in the law. Without that key piece of information, her data (and her resulting conclusions) are worthless.

Not that anyone in the media would ever take time to actually ask those kinds of questions, of course.

(p.s. - I tried to find the original study but could not find a free version)

There could be all kinds of explanations for the changes/differences. Seemed like a pretty weak way to identify a correlation, but I did think it was comparable to the debate about whether mandatory minimum sentences and the death penalty for nondeath crimes would increase the likehihood of death to the victim.

statistics don't equal causation? man! and all this time i thought . . .

[This message was edited by David Newell on 08-07-07 at .]

Here's another right-thinking judge we need in Texas, using common sense to respond to defendant's claims of retardation.

INVERNESS, Florida (AP) -- A convicted sex offender found guilty of kidnapping, raping and burying alive a 9-year-old neighbor is not mentally retarded and is eligible for the death penalty, a judge ruled Tuesday.

Authorities released this photo of John Evander Couey in 2005, the year, a jury ruled, he killed Jessica Lunsford.

Defense attorneys for John Evander Couey, 48, argued that he suffered lifelong mental abuse and possessed a below-normal IQ. A 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruling prohibits the execution of mentally retarded people.

A jury had voted 10-2 to recommend that Couey be executed. Florida law puts the final sentencing decision in the hands of a judge, who must give great weight to a jury recommendation.

Circuit Judge Ric Howard in Citrus County ruled that the most credible intelligence exam rated Couey's IQ at 78, slightly above the 70 level generally considered retarded, the St. Petersburg Times reported.

Couey was convicted of entering the home of Jessica Lunsford in February 2005, taking the girl and killing her. Her body was later found in a grave in Couey's yard, about 150 yards from her own home. He was arrested in Georgia.

"A person who is mentally retarded simply could not have planned such a sophisticated crime, and escape," Howard wrote. {emphasis added}

A telephone message could not be left for Couey's public defender, Daniel Lewan, by The Associated Press after hours Tuesday.

Sentencing has been scheduled for Friday.

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Originally posted by Shannon Edmonds:

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Intimate partner homicides have generally decreased in the past 20 years, ... But in states with mandatory arrest laws, the homicides are about 50 percent higher today than they are in states without the laws.

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This description of her analysis says nothing about how the homicide rates in those states compared before the changes in the law.

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I think it does: what she is saying is that homicide rates have gone down everywhere, but while they are lower compared to 20 years ago, the rate in mandatory arrest states is currently higher than in non-arrest states. For example, the rate in 1985 was 10 in Texas and 10 in New York. Today, it is 5 in Texas and 3 in New York. (I've made these numbers up and NY may be a mandatory arrest state, I don't know). If that were true, her statement would be correct.

And of course, anyone who has prosecuted these cases knows that her hypothesis is true in at least some cases--there are victims who won't call the police because they fear their partner will be arrested.

She does note a trade-off however--that deaths of non-intimate partners, such as children, are lower in the mandatory arrest states. If we have to choose between saving more children and saving more intimate-partner victims, then I'm for saving the children. While I do understand the victimology of the intimate partners, they are still more complicit in their own victimization than the children are.

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Originally posted by Wes:

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Originally posted by Shannon Edmonds:

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Intimate partner homicides have generally decreased in the past 20 years, ... But in states with mandatory arrest laws, the homicides are about 50 percent higher today than they are in states without the laws.

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This description of her analysis says nothing about how the homicide rates in those states compared before the changes in the law.

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I think it does: what she is saying is that homicide rates have gone down _everywhere_, but while they are lower compared to 20 years ago, the rate in mandatory arrest states is currently higher than in non-arrest states.

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Wes, if you use your made-up numbers, you could be correct; but it's equally possible that the rates in mandatory arrest states were 50% higher BEFORE the imposition of mandatory arrest laws. You see that kind of incorrect analysis all the time concerning the death penalty -- people see that the murder rate in a non-DP state is lower than that in a DP state and they conclude that the DP must not be a deterrent. That is an erroneous, since the factors that lead to murders in one state may be very different than those in another.

That's all I was trying to point out. Heck, she might've even done the analysis correctly for all we know -- I just can't view the study to find out. Absent that, her article is inconclusive or misleading.

Point taken. The original post, I thought, suggested that the research has shows a decrease in murders across the board. The abstract which I found online, however, makes me wonder:

Abstract:
Domestic violence remains a major public policy concern despite two decades of policy intervention. To eliminate police inaction in response to domestic violence, many states have passed mandatory arrest laws, which require the police to arrest abusers when a domestic violence incident is reported. These laws were justified by a randomized experiment in Minnesota which found that arrests reduced future violence. This experiment was conducted during a time period when arrest was optional. Using the FBI Supplementary Homicide Reports, I find mandatory arrest laws actually increased intimate partner homicides. I hypothesize that this increase in homicides is due to decreased reporting. I investigate validity of this reporting hypothesis by examining the effect of mandatory arrest laws on family homicides where the victim is less often responsible for reporting. For family homicides, mandatory arrest laws appear to reduce the number of homicides. This study therefore provides evidence that these laws may have perverse effects on intimate partner violence, harming the very people they seek to help.

Like you, I have been unable to find the full paper for free online, although it's only $5.

I apologize for the length. I have this with footnotes included in PDF. Email me if you would like the footnotes citing the competeing research.
BASICS:
80% of all FV homicides occur with no previous contact with the justice system.
The majority of 50 largest cities have mandatory arrest or por-arrest policies regardless of state law requirement or recommendation.

LENGTHY RESPONSE:
Before we throw out this baby: Mandatory Arrest Policies in Family Violence Assault

By Dana Nelson
Austin, Texas

Victims of family violence need the protection of mandatory arrest policies. We know that the rate of intimate partner homicide has steadily declined over the last 30 years. Most studies credit policy changes including mandatory arrest and the increase in resources.

These policies do much more good than harm despite assertions of Radha Iyengar in �The Protection Battered Spouses Don�t Need,� NY Times Op-Ed August 7, 2007. The danger of Ms. Iyengar�s methodology flows from two fundamental errors: first, she erroneously assumes that a victim of homicide knew about the mandatory arrest policy; second, she divides jurisdictions into those having state required or recommended mandatory arrest policies and those that do not.

The majority of victims of family violence homicides have never had contact with the justice system. This may be as high as 80%. The mandatory arrest policy would have no impact on those victims.

She further assumes that the victim chose not to report again and that this report would have prevented the homicide. She also assumes victims believe �harsh penalties� would follow a mandatory arrest and that victims would not report violence to avoid these consequences. This is pure speculation by Iyengar. More likely the �harsh penalty� was exacted when the abuser retaliated against the victim for her report.

She creates a false distinction between jurisdictions where mandatory arrest is required or recommended by state law and those without any state law. She ignores that most of the 50 largest cities have local police policies with some form of mandatory arrest or pro-arrest in family violence cases. Other research has shown that jurisdictions with mandatory arrest policies are less likely to suffer family violence. Her results cannot be considered sound after such an oversight.

We should focus on our attitude towards family violence on the whole so that perpetrators of family violence will be held accountable by all parts of our society: their friends, family, employers, church, and neighbors.