Pros and Cons of Mandatory Arrest in Domestic Battery Cases

In 1986 The Illinois Domestic Violence Act (IDVA) passed. It contains a provision for when arrests are necessary in domestic cases. Illinois is considered a “may arrest” state. Arrests are not always mandatory. As part of the implementation of the law, the Illinois Family Violence Coordinating Councils were established in counties across the state and charged with overseeing local implementation of the IDVA. These implementation points included training of local law enforcement officers, readiness of emergency responders, community mental health professionals, and judges and prosecuting attorneys. Law enforcement officers should receive training on arrest protocols. 

In Illinois, officers are required to make arrests in cases involving physical injury or the use of a deadly weapon. They are not required to make arrests in all instances. The relative vagueness and discretion given to law enforcement means that arrest policies are not consistent. One officer may consider an injury inconsequential; another may arrest when any injury is present. Pros and cons around the issue of mandatory arrest are many and varied and debated around this issue continues. 

Mandatory arrests disproportionately impact undocumented people and low-income people. Undocumented people, especially now, are at great risk of deportation if arrested at all. Because of mandatory arrest laws, victims may be afraid to call for fear that they or their partner will be deported due to immigration status. An abuser being deported could keep a victim safe, but it could also put the family under great financial burden. 

Low-income people are more likely to be arrested for domestic violence because they tend to live in closer proximity to neighbors who might call if they hear a disturbance next door. Financial abuse is often part of the cycle of violence and the abuser may be the only or primary breadwinner. If on top of that the abuser is also working at a low-income job or hourly wage job, they would be at risk of losing that job while in jail. At any rate, if they are not salaried, they would not be receiving income while incarcerated. 

Mandatory arrest policies can also lead to duel arrests wherein the victim and abuser are both arrested when the police respond to a domestic violence call. The police sometimes encounter victims who are angry, yelling, and unclear. Abusers can often appear calm. This leaves police officers confused and frustrated and in some cases they just arrest everyone because they have to arrest someone. 

Without domestic violence laws and mandatory arrest provisions, men who battered their wives were much more likely to be asked by police to “take a walk around the block” rather than face any legal consequences. This can leave victims in unsafe situations where a partner is very angry the police were called, blames the victim for the call, and retaliates with greater violence. In many cases mandatory arrests make victims safer. It shows abusers that domestic violence is taken seriously and has consequences. The abuser does not have immediate access to the victim. Arrests can also lead to more abusers being mandated to partner abuse intervention programs. These programs can help abusers learn to make other choices. 

Without mandatory arrest policies, abusers are not as likely to be held accountable. However, there are many downsides to mandatory arrests. It is clear why this issue has remained controversial. Better training for law enforcement could lessen some of the problems mandatory arrests cause. Understanding that if an abuser seems calm, he may still be very dangerous is of key importance. 

I believe that the scholars and experts who lead the Grand Challenge to Build Healthy Relationships to End Violence (one of the Grand Challenges of Social Work) recommend that we should consider domestic violence as a mental health or behavioral health problem, and solutions should be framed as mental health interventions more than criminal justice interventions. Just ignoring domestic violence and letting an abuser get away with it is bad, but also your paper shows many of the drawbacks associated with treating domestic violence as a criminal justice issue.  That said, domestic violence can certainly meet the definitions of felony assault or battery. And, I wonder if the crisis sparked by an arrest might help prepare an abuser for a behavioral health intervention that would end the abuse. 

This is a difficult issue, and your paper has done a fine job of briefly identifying some of the issues and perspectives we might have concerning mandatory arrest. 

I have forgotten how common domestic violence is. I am not well-read in the gender-based violence literature. 

I would recommend consulting the policy recommendations of the Grand Challenge to Build Healthy Relationships to End Violence. 

Student Editorial in favor of federal program providing de-escalation training for local law enforcement

  At some point in our lives, most of us will need assistance from law enforcement. Unfortunately, there is a general feeling in most of society that officers are not doing their jobs appropriately, and instead of having faith that police will be helpful, people fear police will re-victimize them. To address the dismay much of the public feels towards law enforcement, we must understand where it comes from. Implicit biases that result in unlawful traffic stops and arrests, excessive use of force, and an inability to understand how to properly handle those with mental health crises are just a few areas that have led to the disdain that many individuals feel towards police officers. These incidents are a direct reflection of ineffective training for law enforcement in de-escalation techniques and—seeing as officers are trained in this area the least—it is no wonder that some officers are incapable of doing their jobs judiciously.

Officers are mandated to take training in defensive tactics, firearm handling, and de-escalation techniques. However, there is a major imbalance on length of time in these categories. While the median for defensive tactics training officers receive is 49 hours and 58 hours of firearms training, recruits only receive a median of 8 hours of de-escalation training. The emphasis on defensive tactics and firearms training is undoubtedly crucial, but it may contribute to the extreme reaction from some officers that results in excessive force or civilian deaths. Extensive de-escalation training protects not only the public but the law enforcement agency.  It would add additional protections to police officers to be able to conduct themselves in a manner that does not immediately have to result in violence or excessive force, saving the public from tragic fatalities and allowing law enforcement to avoid lawsuits that stem from police mistreatment of civilians. 

Though de-escalation training is not a new concept, we must bring attention to deficiency in that aspect of police officer trainings. De-escalation tactics should be the forefront of police training to establish the need of understanding and empathy from officers when dealing with civilians. If the public feels that they are being treated as human beings by these people who hold so much power rather than criminals who do not deserve any compassion, we can begin to rebuild our trust in law enforcement and the justice system. Not only would an increase in these trainings benefit the public, but police officers may be able to be seen in a much more positive light.

We must demand a federally funded and mandated de-escalation training program for all officers that allows for continued training every year. We need to rebuild the public’s ease of mind and our trust in law enforcement, creating a harmonious relationship and bringing back the safety we need to feel within law enforcement. Without more emphasis on de-escalation training, society can continue to look forward to continued dread when it comes to our need for police officers in any situation.  

Resources

https://www.rstreet.org/research/exploring-de-escalation-training-programs-impact-and-resourcing/

https://peacefulleadersacademy.com/blog/police-de-escalation-statistics/#:~:text=A%20survey%20of%20over%20280,49%20hours%20of%20defensive%20tactics.

https://peacefulleadersacademy.com/blog/positive-impacts-of-police-de-escalation-training/

https://cops.usdoj.gov/de-escalation_training_act#:~:text=The%20Law%20Enforcement%20De%2Descalation,%3B%20(ii)%20safely%20responding%20to

The emphasis on defensive tactics is usually justified as a job safety issue. People working in law enforcement don’t want to be killed on the job.  But, really, how many police are killed at work (and not killed at work in traffic fatalities)? Over the past ten years, law enforcement deaths reported by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund have ranged from 118 in 2023 to 660 in 2021.  This confounds “fatal injuries” with homicides, as according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rate for homicides is much lower (ranged from 26 in 2024 to 64 in 2021).  As I tell my students, about 50 law enforcement are killed (murdered) during their work each year, but police kill about 1,100 each year.  Now, are police violently attacked?  Sure, all the time.  In the two-year period 2021-2022 there were 6,680 non-fatal injuries inflicted upon police by persons who assaulted them that were significant enough that the law enforcement person had to take at least one day off from work. I presume these were law enforcement personnel on duty, and we’re not including off-duty law enforcement people who get beat up in taverns or domestic disputes. 

I had a relative, recently returned from two tours of duty in Vietnam, who didn’t like the way a couple police were bullying someone in a bar, and got into a fight with them, which he won.  I believe he spent some months on the San Francisco Bay (in San Quentin) as a result. I don’t think that sort of thing should be counted as an assault on officers in their line of work, since bullying guys in bars while off duty isn’t really what law enforcement officers are paid to do.

What we need is for some social workers and police officers to put together a standard two-day eight-hour training system with a follow-up 2-hour session held months after the initial two-day dose where police learn de-escalation and conflict resolution techniques. Then, we need to study interactions with the public that people who’ve had the training experience in the year(s) following the training, and see whether the training has improved the experiences on the job for those officers, both in terms of their self-reported experiences and by examining their record of experiences in high-conflict situations.  It would be a wonderful intervention and study, and if we could get dozens of different trainings tested all at about the same time and could determine that some of these were especially effective, then we could implement this federal program of paying for them, as you have suggested.  What I fear is that we might just spend money on training that has little influence on police behavior.  Currently, we already spend all those hours on defense training and firearms training, and I’m pretty sure that much of that training has never been studied to see whether it makes law enforcement personnel any safer.  

Recent surveys concerning police include 

the CATO Institute’s work from Emily Ekins “Policing in America: Understanding Public Attitudes Toward the Police”

According to the study presented by Ekins, only 12% of Hispanics, 13% of European Americans, and 19% of African Americans expressed “unfavorable” views toward police. While those are modest percentages, they aren’t really very small, and that represents a lot of people. Only 54% of African Americans and 57% of Hispanic Americans were “definitely” willing to report crimes to the police (over 40% were not). Compare that to 78% of European American who would report a crime. Americans with African heritage have been suspicious of police for a long time. Ekins reports that in 1970 only 43% of Black Americans had a favorable view of police, and in 2015 that number was about the same (slightly lower) at 40%.  This was a CATO Institute study, so it’s no surprise that there are obvious mathematical errors in the reported survey results, but I think the general trend that wealthier people have more positive attitudes about police is confirmed, even for Blacks, where those earning over $60,000 per year had 48% with favorable views of police, whereas only 41% of those earning less than $30,000 per year had favorable views (at all income levels, Black Americans had higher than 40% favorability rates for the police, so I don’t understand how Ekins reports that only 40% of African Americans have favorable views of the police). 

The CATO study showed that 84% of Americans oppose civil asset forfeiture (where the police can take your property and keep it if they suspect you might have used it in a crime, even if you haven’t been convicted of a crime); and 77% would prohibit police from using profanity with citizens; 68% wanted police to have more training on how to deal with confrontations; 79% wanted agencies outside the police force to investigate allegations of police wrongdoing; and 89% wanted police to wear body cameras. 

The survey showed that 39% of African Americans reported knowing someone who had been physically mistreated by police, and that figure was much higher than for European Americans (18%) and Hispanics (27%).  

Another study discussed by the Council on Criminal Justice in 2020 found that 91% of Black American adults believe that police treat black people less fairly than white people. Most Americans want to hold police more accountable, and want a federal database to track law enforcement personnel accused of misconduct. Most people also want police to live in the communities where they work. About nine out of ten Democratic Party voters wanted major changes in policing, whereas only about 14% of Republican voters wanted such changes. 

A Gallup Poll asking how much confidence people have in the police shows Americans have never had particularly strong confidence: the highest ever recorded between 1993 and 2024 was about 64% (in 2004), and the lowest ever measured was about 44% (in 2023).  The rate of confidence in 2024 was 51%, which is historically low, about the same as it was in 1993, 2014, and 2021, and higher than only three of the lowest confidence years (which were 2020, 2022, and 2023). 

Low confidence in the police relates to a low level of confidence Americans feel for all their major public institutions. Americans have the most confidence in small business (68% with “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence) and the military (61% with confidence). The police came in third with about 51% having a great deal or quite a lot of confidence in them.  Higher education and the medical system are the fourth place institutions with only 36% of Americans having much confidence in those, and from there, it goes down. Americans have the least confidence in big business (16%), television news (12%), and Congress (9%). The criminal justice system, at 21%, is an institution Americans don’t trust much either.

A Pew Trust poll (Pew is among the best sources for polling and surveys) showed that in December of 2018 about 30% of Americans had “a great deal of confidence” in police to “act in the best interests of the public”, but by December of 2021 that had fallen to 20% who had such Pollyannaish opinions.

Criminalize Homelessness

City by city, more ordinances are being voted into place regarding the control of homeless populations. Laws outlawing camping in a city allows law enforcement to encourage unhoused persons to go into emergency shelters and get help, or else stay overnight in a jail, or else pay a fine if they insist on sleeping outdoors within the city's limits. Such ordinances recently got pushed as if there was an emergency into votes within two-day period in a succession of Illinois towns, including Springfield. Here in Springfield, the community of unhoused persons could have been made into criminals within 48 hours if there was no restraint.

This ordinance gives police and city legal authorities the power to enforce removal orders and impose jail, fees, or penalties if people were not gone within the 24-hours of the removal order. This is not an effective way to solve or prevent homelessness. There are many organizations that provide support needed such as Heartland Housed, Helping Hands, Contact Ministries, Inner City Mission, and many different sheltering and food services. To meet homeless people with more negativity and fees, this would further the cycle of poverty and life on the street. With support, people can spend time with resources, eventually being able to work again and find themselves in housing.

Not only does this ordinance reverse progress made on the increasingly significant issue of homelessness, it also makes public services and places seem unavailable or inaccessible. This is because it allows police officers to remove homeless people from an area and jail/fine them if they have not gone. There is no restriction on how far the area can be of removal. This ordinance can remove a human’s right to public property and services. It can also influence homeless people to stay away from certain areas, and therefore prevent them from accessing essential resources such as housing, food, and job opportunities.

With all the control over this population within the community, there can become a general distrust of public service workers. This could include the people out there trying to help them. Many factors could now influence the homeless from avoiding the help to get out of this cycle. Without plan for alternative accommodation and placement, this ordinance would undo the progression done for homeless community. Criminalization does not solve the issue just as seen with the war on drug.

Overall, passing an ordinance to criminalize homelessness would have far more negative effects than positive on the surrounding community. Homelessness should be met with support and a proactive approach.

You strongly oppose ordinances criminalizing camping in the city or sleeping outdoors, and you offer many reasons for your negative feelings about such ordinances. A key difference of opinion between those who humanely support such ordinances and those who oppose them seems rooted in the question of whether such ordinances will increase the use of services to help people move from a state of being unhoused to a state of having permanent housing.  Humane supporters of such ordinances claim that the laws will enable law enforcement to coerce unhoused people into services.  Supporters of  the ordinance hold a premise (or perhaps it is a belief based on some evidence?) is that several persons who sleep on streets in vacant lots, in doorways, and in tents within a city do so because they shun the alternatives (of going into emergency housing, and getting help there to transition toward moving into permanent housing). Are there actually beds and spots in emergency shelters where people could stay if they aren't allowed to sleep outdoors?  Are people who refuse to use the services offered by shelters doing so because they do not want the services that would help them get into permanent housing?  Do emergency shelters offer services that are likely to be successful in moving unhoused persons into permanent housing?  

Persons opposing the laws make the same observations that you make.  They seem to hold a premise (or an observation based on evidence) that coercively forcing people into services is unlikely to work, and may provoke more negative emotions and avoidance-of-help behaviors than already exist.  Persons also may doubt the humane intentions of persons advocating for the ordinances.  There may be a strong suspicion (that I also happen to hold) that rather than being motivated by hoping to get people into services, many who support such ordinances are actually motivated by a desire to "get rid" of unhoused persons, by chasing them out of the city or else locking them up.  

The counts of persons who are unhoused have been increasing.  After years of January census efforts to count single night occupancy of emergency shelters and persons sleeping outdoors or in sheltered indoor spots not intended for sleeping, the numbers most recently have started to increase significantly. The numbers had been fairly stable since the end of the Great Recession, but the inflation of housing and rental costs associated with the post-Covid inflationary housing shortage seems to be forcing more people into shelters or the streets. Efforts to help the homeless by expanding emergency shelter spots or accommodating camping may be misguided if they are not combined with a significant effort to create permanent housing destinations and help unhoused persons get into the permanent housing solutions. 

If permanent housing solutions are available for unhoused people, surely almost all of them will take advantage of the opportunity to get into a home of their own instead of living in tents or on sidewalks. I wish there were a law that cities and counties had to provide housing of a certain standard to unhoused persons, and criminal penalties would be imposed on elected officials who failed to do this, rather than criminal penalties being imposed on persons who can find nowhere to call a home where they can be safe from the elements. While the free market can dominate the housing market, some degree of housing ought to be provided outside capitalist pressures and profit-making motives.  

Ideally, I believe something like 10% to 30% of all housing ought to be provided on a non-profit or public basis.  I think this would be good in a few ways.  It would, first of all, make it possible to meet the standards of human rights, as all people have a right to a certain standard of living that includes housing.  Secondly, once a certain percentage of housing stock is organized in a non-profit or public way, the private market must keep rent and housing prices lower, as the widely available non-profit and public housing options will create a competitive pressure on those who rent or sell housing, forcing them to keep their prices lower (and their profits more reasonable).  Further, if cities and neighborhoods and non-profit housing corporations take up a significant portion of all housing development and provision, they can use this power to push cities toward designs and zoning principles that help break up racial segregation, help make cities more walkable or bike friendly, and promote energy efficient and financially sustainable housing.  

I recommend Hanna Rosin's June 6, 2024 article in The Atlantic “A Supreme Court Ruling on Homelessness That's both Crucial and Useless”.  [could be blocked by a paywall, as you can get three articles a month without a subscription]

Also, the article by Thomas Birmingham from August 27, 2024 in The Appeal. “Cities Rush to Criminalize Homelessness after Supreme Court Ruling”

Also, the article by Deianira Nevárez Martínez from The Conversation (October 2, 2024) “Cities are clearing encampments, but this won't solve homelessness - here's a better way forward”.

See Lisel Petis’s article “Breaking the Cycle: Effectively Addressing Homelessness and Safety” from R Street (October 24, 2024). 

You might also like the article from Nonprofit Law Prof Blog by Darrell K. Jones (Florida A&M University College of Law) “A Bi-Coastal Crisis of Credibility Amongst Homelessness Nonprofits” (October 22, 2024).

The SAFE-T Act

 Bail in the United States is a very controversial topic. While the idea behind it is logical to an extent, being that people will be less likely to just ditch court and other post-jail time proceedings if they’ve already invested something; it is not fair to those who may not be able to afford it, whether or not they desire to. With Illinois becoming the first state to remove bail, an interesting opportunity arises, to finally see how a bail-less environment will impact things like jail-time and crime rates. It will be interesting to see if it has any significant impact, positive or negative, on the effectiveness of the criminal justice system.

I personally believe that this can most likely only be beneficial or neutral in terms of the statistics mentioned prior. I had previously done a project on a possible bail removal in Illinois, and I was very intrigued and pleased by the idea. Bail inherently affects jail-time, especially for lower income families. A rich person may commit a crime worse than someone of lower socioeconomic class, but spend virtually no time in jail because they have a greater wealth to spend on bail. Now, obviously just because you are able to pay bail does not mean you are free or off the hook. However, this still matters because of the unfair level of freedom between socioeconomic classes that this causes.

In the past, I’ve seen documentaries on bail (specifically pertaining to low-income households and how they are affected by bail) and on other topics where bail would be brought up. In them, the true tragedy that bail can cause was well illustrated. For example, in the one focused on bail in particular, someone had committed a petty crime, and in another family someone got committed for a crime they possibly did not even commit. Despite this, the families could not see their respective beloved family members, since they could not afford the bail. Imagine not being able to see your mother or father, your daughter or son, or another close relative outside of a cell the government is keeping them in because you do not have enough money. That, to me, sounds absolutely gut-wrenchingly vile, that a government would keep a system in place where it is easily possible and not uncommon for this to happen.

What surprises me the most is that nothing like this has been truly attempted before in the US on this scale, at least not from my recollection. I was ecstatic hearing that this was finally being realized, but I still worry it may not last, and that Illinois may be the only state to try this to this extent. A decision like this is clearly a very big one to make, one with risks, but I firmly believe it is worth it to have a good chance at making the criminal justice system more fair. Considering all of the other terribly unjust aspects of it – the greater incarceration rate for people of color and the many innocent people who are convicted and imprisoned being prime examples – I think we truly need a law or policy like this as a great step towards a more free and fair nation.

The fact that our country’s incarceration rate is one of the highest in the world should be a wake-up call in and of itself; we need to focus on that much more than we already do. Especially since many of the issues surrounding it, much like this one, can repeat themselves and become perpetual if nothing is done. For example, if a very young child’s poor single mother has to go to jail for some minor crime, but their family cannot afford the bail, so they must simply wait out the time, the child may grow up for a substantial portion of time without a parental figure. This could lead to the child growing up without certain values or manners instilled in them. Combine this with the fact that the family is low-income to begin with, they may end up not learning or understanding how to be a stable, secure, and independent adult. They may end up committing crimes and/or staying unemployed because they do not know better. Stories akin to this one are all over America, and it’s one of this country’s greatest failures in my eyes. Hence, this bail removal in Illinois is a wonderful change that ought to have some significant impact, and I hope other states consider adopting it as well.

I like your open-mindedness and curiosity about ending cash bail. There are obvious problems with the bail system, and your characterization of some of those systemic problems being “gut-wrenchingly vile” seems appropriate. The problem of inevitable error (all social welfare policies have errors, and changes that reduce one sort of an error will usually increase some other type of error) applies, and there are risks of problems with ending cash bail.  At least Illinois is working as a laboratory, and talking about the desire to end a system that inflicts harms of injustice and unfair treatment based on income/wealth. If the problems resulting from ending cash bail in Illinois are not too egregious, perhaps other states will follow the Illinois example, and this will be a step toward a more perfect union, with more freedom and justice, and less unfair discrimination against persons lacking wealth or well-paying employment. I personally communicated with my representatives in the General Assembly endorsing the SAFE-T Act, but I studied criticisms of the act as well. I’m pretty confident the new practices will have more benefits than harmful consequences, but if significant problems emerge, I think and hope that the state government will be able to solve them without returning to systems of cash bail.