From the always-informative CourtWatchFlorida, a heads-up on the Department of Justice’s new report on domestic violence.
As I was reading through the report, a few facts jumped out:
Domestic violence-related police calls have been found to constitute the single largest category of calls received by police, accounting for 15 to more than 50 percent of all calls.
And:
[W]hether police arrested the suspect or not, their involvement had a strong deterrent effect.
I don’t know where Atlanta falls in the percentage of police calls made due to domestic violence (and that includes calls made by anybody, including third-parties), but it represents a substantial proportion of police resources.
And, even if arrests aren’t made, it is apparently time well-spent, since simply getting the police involved is a deterrent to further violence. It may not feel that way to the cop who has to come out and deal with a frustrating, unresolved situation, but the research findings are unusually unambiguous on this important point: calling the police is an effective deterrent to escalating violence.
That’s worth considering, too, when you’re trying to decide what to do.
Regardless of the actual numbers, around the country it’s also by far the deadliest calls to go on too, BTW. JP