Revisiting the effect of warrantless domestic violence arrest laws on intimate partner homicides

Yoo-Mi Chin () and Scott Cunningham

Journal of Public Economics, 2019, vol. 179, issue C

Abstract: Warrantless domestic violence arrest laws allow officers to make arrests of alleged offenders of domestic violence without warrants given probable cause. Existing literature classifies these laws into three groups based on the degree of arrest authority given to officers: discretionary, preferred, and mandatory. Using our updating of each type of warrantless domestic violence arrest law, we examine the causal effect of these laws on intimate partner homicides using differences-in-differences. In contrast to Iyengar (2009), we find no evidence that mandatory arrest laws, which remove officer discretion by making arrest a required action, increased intimate partner homicides. Instead, we find some evidence that discretionary arrest statutes, which allowed officer discretion to make arrests, decreased current and former spousal homicides.

Keywords: Domestic violence; Crime; Gender; Warrantless arrest (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D10 I31 J12 K42 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (26)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:pubeco:v:179:y:2019:i:c:s0047272719301331

DOI: 10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.104072

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