My recent co-authored column, Maine’s Adoption of Predominant Aggressor Doctrine in DV Arrests Will Ensnare Innocent Men (Lewiston Sun Journal, 8/5/07), criticizes Maine’s LD 1039, a domestic violence bill. Combining with other misguided laws and policies, the bill essentially makes a street cop responding to a 911 call the arbiter of child custody, and of whether the children involved will have their fathers in their futures or not. The bill was recently signed into law in Maine.
Gretchen Ziemer, legislative coordinator for the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence (one of the organizations which pushed LD 1039), and John B. Rogers, director of the Maine Criminal Justice Academy, state the case in favor of the bill in their column Identifying aggressors brings context to crises (Lewiston Sun Journal, 8/12/07). It’s the second half of a point/counterpoint that the Sun Journal published on the issue. My column (linked above) was published the previous Sunday.
The Ziemer/Rogers column appears below, with my comments in italics inserted.
Identifying aggressors brings context to crises
Sunday, August 12, 2007
The complexities of domestic violence cases require policies to help police comprehend abuse situations.
The Maine Criminal Justice Academy, the Maine Department of Public Safety, the Maine Coalition to End Domestic Violence and Rep. Deb Simpson, D-Auburn, united this past legislative session around LD 1309, a bill adopting police policies and education about proper “predominant aggressor” identification and enforcement.The International Association of Chiefs of Police defines predominant aggressor as “the person who poses the most serious ongoing threat,” while realizing “an injury resulting from…self-defense is neither abuse nor a crime.”
[The "person who poses the most serious ongoing threat" is code for "arrest the man." The man, because of his greater size, will almost always be perceived as being the "most serious ongoing threat." The idea that when women hit or abuse men, it's only (or usually) in self-defense has been discredited by research for many years. In reality, most men and women hit in self-defense in about equal numbers, and most blows by either gender are not struck in self-defense.]
Since 1984, mandatory arrest laws have been implemented to punish and deter domestic abuse. The complexity of domestic violence requires a judicial response that encourages police, judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, bail commissioners, etc. to understand the context of domestic violence and examine each case individually.Criminalizing domestic violence with mandatory arrest laws started with the concept batterers wouldn’t stop until the community thought of their actions as crimes. Activists also believed criminalization would stigmatize the batterer.
["Criminalizing domestic violence with mandatory arrest laws started with the concept batterers wouldn't stop until the community thought of their actions as crimes" is a big leap. Yes, it is true that having the community think of domestic violence as a "crime" does deter batterers, and this society-wide awareness is one of the many positive things the feminist movement did.
In previous eras, the attitude towards domestic violence tended to be more of the "it's between the two of you, keep it off the street" variety. However, there is a big difference between treating DV as a crime and mandatory arrest.
What mandatory arrest laws often do is create arrests where there has not been a crime. There's a 911 call, the officers are pressured to make an arrest, they're pressured to arrest men ("perps") not women. As a result, many, many innocent men have been thrown into the domestic violence system, and prosecuted because of "No drop" prosecution policies.]
As time passed, the Legislature enacted laws giving officers more arrest authority, victims more protection with bail conditions and protective orders and required police to have better domestic violence policies and training.
[The statement that laws have been "giving officers more arrest authority" is misleading--they've made it easier for officers to make arrests, but they've stripped officers of their authority and discretion to size up a DV situation and make an intelligent decision on it. Instead, hands tied, officers are often forced to arrest men in situations where it is very unclear that they engaged in any violence.]
Yet, according to the Maine Department of Public Safety, the crime of Domestic Assault, as reported to police, occurs every 96 minutes. (Maine Department of Public Safety, Uniform Crime Report, 2005.) Mandatory arrest was encouraged by most police agencies to help stop the crime, but not as the sole response to domestic violence. (more…)
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