Women’s Perspectives on the Context of Violence and Role of Police in Their Intimate Partner Violence Arrest Experiences

Abstract

Intimate partner violence (IPV) accounts for up to 50% of all calls to police. In an effort to standardize arrest criteria, mandatory arrest laws were established. It is unclear whether subsequent increased rates of female arrest are due to greater recognition of female IPV perpetrators or of women acting in self-defense. This study aims to understand the context and consequences of IPV-related arrest from perspectives of women arrested in a single metropolitan area. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with women arrested and court-ordered to attend IPV education groups at a women’s shelter in the Northeast United States. Interviews addressed circumstances surrounding arrest, experience with past violence, and reasoning regarding use of partner violence. Two researchers independently coded transcripts and met to iteratively refine the code and review transcripts for themes. Eighteen women were interviewed. Major themes that emerged were as follows: (a) Women’s use of violence occurred within the context of their own victimization; (b) the arrest included a complex interplay between subject, partner, and police; (c) women perceived police arrest decisions to be based on a limited understanding of context; and (d) women experienced both positive and negative consequences of arrest. Many relationships did not fall under the traditional victim/perpetrator construct. Rather, women’s use of violence evolved, influenced by prior experiences with violence. More appropriate methods must be developed for making arrest decisions, guiding justice system responses, and developing interventions for couples experiencing IPV. Recognition that women’s use of partner violence often represented either a retaliatory or self-defensive gesture within the context of prior victimization suggests that victims’ interventions should not only focus on empowerment but also provide skills and strategies to avoid temptation to adopt aggression as a primary method of self-protection.

Keywords

community violence legal intervention domestic violence women offenders

Introduction

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is defined as “physical, sexual, or psychological harm by a current or former partner or spouse,” further framed as “a pattern of behavior used to establish power and control over another person with whom an intimate relationship is or has been shared through fear and intimidation, often including the threat or use of violence” (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2013; National Coalition Against Domestic Violence [NCADV], 2013). IPV accounts for a large proportion of overall calls to police, by some estimates from 15% to more than 50% (Klein, 2009). Law enforcement response to IPV prior to the past few decades was frequently inadequate; police either dismissed IPV-related calls or resorted to conflict-resolution tactics upon arrival at the scene (Zeoli, Norris, & Brenner, 2011). Police officers could not make warrantless arrests unless an act of IPV was witnessed; victims often behaved in a counterintuitive manner when police arrived on the scene and were frequently reluctant to press charges or file an arrestable complaint (Klein, 2009; Zeoli et al., 2011).

Mandatory arrest laws were established as a culmination of increased social advocacy for victims of IPV and greater recognition of inadequate IPV arrests (N. Miller, 2004; Zeoli et al., 2011). The introduction of mandatory arrest laws for perpetrators of IPV was with the intention of protecting victims—the responsibility for filing an arrestable complaint would then be shifted from women who may be afraid to do so on their own behalf to the police. New laws varied broadly among states, from simply allowing for warrantless arrest to mandating an arrest of at least one individual once police are called to the scene (N. Miller, 2004; Zeoli & Webster, 2010). In an examination of early police response to enactment of mandatory arrest laws, Mignon and Holmes not only found that arrests of offenders were significantly increased but also noted an increase in dual arrests. These changes were attributed to police mandate to arrest conservatively and not “miss” an arrestable offense, and inadequate understanding of the situation and transfer of burden of assigning blame to the legal system (Mignon & Holmes, 1995). Other studies have found that women are disproportionally affected by mandatory arrest laws, attributable to situational ambiguity in arrest scenarios (Durfee, 2012). Thus, a surprising and unintended consequence of these mandatory arrest laws was the greater proportion of women arrested for IPV since the laws’ enactment, accounted for by either arrest of the female partner only or a dual arrest of both male and female partner (Deleon-Granados, Wells, & Binsbacher, 2006; S. L. Miller, 2001; S. L. Miller & Meloy, 2006).

Two schools of thought have emerged from a greater recognition of women’s use of violence and increased arrest. Some studies support a gendered perspective where women use violence primarily as a tool for self-defense and experience violence by their partners more frequently than they perpetrate violence (Dobash & Dobash, 2004; Stuart et al., 2006). On the other hand, when men and women are asked to recount frequency of violent acts within their relationships apart from the label of “victimization,” the more symmetrical “family violence” view emerges (Archer, 2000, 2002; Dixon & Graham-Kevan, 2011). This body of research supports the concept of men and women as both victims and perpetrators of IPV, particularly in younger populations (Carney, Buttell, & Dutton, 2007; Romans, Forte, Cohen, Du Mont, & Hyman, 2007; Strauss, 2008; Strauss & Ramirez, 2007; Whitaker, Haileyesus, Swahn, & Saltzman, 2007). Despite these orthogonal perspectives, the overarching message is that within the context of intimate relationships, even as women and men use physical aggression with the same frequency, men continue to be greater perpetrators of the “control” aspect of IPV: coercion, stalking, and sexual abuse (Kernsmith, 2005; Swan, Gambone, Caldwell, Sullivan, & Snow, 2008; Swan & Snow, 2003, 2006).

A fair amount of research has been performed to quantify women’s experiences as users of violence, but a deeper understanding from arrestees regarding the contexts of violence, impact of the arrest experience, and preventive strategies for future violence has not yet been elucidated. While quantitative studies are able to report the frequency, severity, and motivations of violence, they are also by nature narrow in scope. The qualitative literature on this topic is limited. Few studies have explored the contexts and experiences regarding women’s arrest experiences for IPV from the perspectives of the women themselves.

Our study objective is to describe the perspectives of women arrested for IPV regarding their arrest, their experiences with violence, and their reasons for using violence. With our findings we hope to generate a deeper understanding of the circumstances associated with women’s use of partner violence that can then educate social, legal, and health care services to provide better preventive, supportive, and intervention services to these women.

Method

We chose a qualitative approach to allow women to share their perspectives and experiences while minimizing imposition of preconceived ideas or structure. Qualitative research is used to elucidate social, emotional, and interpersonal dynamics associated with personal experiences and provides a deeper understanding of participants’ perspectives compared with traditional quantitative methods (Giacomini & Cook, 2000; Malterud, 2001). The use of qualitative research in the field of intimate partner violence is well-established and spans the disciplines of health care and law. Empirical qualitative studies have formed the basis for meta-analysis to address women’s perceived and desired responses from health care professionals (Feder, Hutson, Ramsay, & Taket, 2006). Qualitative studies have been performed on problematic police attitudes toward IPV (DeJong, Burgess-Proctor, & Elis, 2008), reasons for women’s use of IPV leading to arrest (S. L. Miller & Meloy, 2006), and challenges to identity faced by women arrested for IPV (Rajah, Frye, & Haviland, 2006).

Settings and Participants

We conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews with women court-ordered to attend IPV education groups at a women’s shelter in the Northeast United States from 2009 to 2012. Participants were required to be over 18 years of age, able to speak English, and comfortable and willing to talk about their arrest and violence experiences. All women recruited to the study had been arrested for an IPV-related charge and were attending the group as ordered by the Magisterial District Judges at preliminary hearings, or the Court of Common Pleas. Participants are screened by IPV legal advocates prior to participation; women are eligible for court-ordered group as a diversion from criminal prosecution if the arrest was their first offense for IPV or in cases of dual arrest where both parties were ordered to attend court-approved IPV education programs. Our study was reviewed and approved by the Institutional Review Board at the University of Pittsburgh.

Data Collection

We recruited women by obtaining permission from IPV victim advocates to describe the study during court-ordered group times. Advocates also assisted with recruitment by sharing the study information with other potential participants from past court-ordered groups. Interested women then contacted our study team members. The semi-structured interviews were conducted by researchers (S.L., A.E., J.C.C.) trained and proficient in qualitative interviewing techniques. In each interview, the women were asked to describe the situation leading to their arrest, experiences with IPV in the relationship at the time of the arrest, their prior experience with IPV and other non-IPV violence, and participants’ desired support and interventions. We encouraged women to relay their narratives in an open and spontaneous manner with follow-up questions to clarify details of their experience. Interviews lasted between 30 and 180 min. All interviews were audiotaped and transcribed by the interviewer. A brief survey containing demographic information and experiences with violence was also administered.

Data Analysis

We used a grounded theory approach, assigning interpretive codes to each portion of the transcript in an iterative fashion rather than relying on a pre-established codebook (Corbin, Strauss, & Strauss, 2008; Glaser & Strauss, 1967). In this way, we allowed the themes in participants’ experiences to emerge without applying pre-existing assumptions. For each transcript, two coders independently analyzed transcripts using Atlas*ti software. Following coding, we met to discuss and compare codes and categories and to iteratively refine the coding scheme. This coding process was performed on the full transcripts for all interviews. The final codes and categories were then reviewed for patterns and themes. Additional steps to corroborate our findings included feedback sessions with IPV victim advocates, who found our themes to be consistent with their expertise and experiences working with women arrested for IPV, and member checking (Giacomini & Cook, 2000) with a group of women arrested for IPV (n = 5) recruited from the court-ordered groups who were similar in age and demographics to the study group but who had not participated in one-on-one interviews.

Results

Participant Descriptions

Eighteen women participated in this study. Their characteristics are described in Table 1. Participants were from a range of racial, socioeconomic, and educational backgrounds. A majority of participants endorsed prior experiences with violence (Table 2). Of all participants, 63% had experienced abuse as a child (defined as physical, verbal, sexual, or emotional abuse/neglect), and 53% had experienced IPV in a past relationship. While almost all women had experienced some type of violence in the relationship at the time of their arrest (75%, 89%, 94%, and 13% for physical, verbal, emotional, and sexual, respectively), they also used violence in the relationship (69%, 81%, 38%, and 0% for physical, verbal, emotional, and sexual, respectively). The demographics of the validation group were similar to the study group and are shown in Table 3.

Table 1.

Description of Participants.

Median age	27 years
Range	19-53 years
	% (n)
Race
White	50 (9)
African-American	44 (8)
Other	6 (1)
Marital status
Single	67 (12)
Married	6 (1)
Separated/divorced	28 (5)
Education
Grade school	11 (2)
High school	33 (6)
College or higher	56 (10)
Employment status
Working	67 (12)
In school	11 (2)
Unemployed	22 (4)

Note. N = 18.

Table 2.

Experiences With Violence.

	% (n)
Past violence
Childhood abuse	63 (10)
Past IPV relationship	56 (9)
Violence in arrest relationship
IPV perpetration
Physical	69 (11)
Verbal	81 (13)
Emotional	38 (6)
Sexual	0 (0)
Receive IPV
Physical	75 (12)
Verbal	89 (14)
Emotional	94 (15)
Sexual	13 (2)

Note. N = 16. Past violence survey data not available for two participants interviewed. IPV = intimate partner violence.

Table 3.

Description of Validation Group.

Age (range)	29-45 years
Race	3 Caucasian; 2 African American
Marital status	2 married; 3 single
Education	3 high school; 2 college or higher
Employment status	2 employed; 3 unemployed

Themes

We identified four major themes: (a) Women’s use of violence occurred within a context of their own victimization or trauma experiences; (b) the arrest included a complex interplay between subject, partner, and police; (c) women perceived police arrest decisions to be based on limited understanding of the context of a dispute; and (d) women experienced both positive and negative consequences as a result of their arrest.

Women’s use of violence occurred within the context of their own victimization

In all 18 interviews, the women mentioned some past violence in their lives. This included witnessing family violence, experiencing childhood bullying, and experiencing verbal, sexual, emotional, or physical IPV as victims. The women associated these prior experiences with their own use of violence and described an evolution of the role of violence in their lives. Both prior IPV and non-intimate partner violence were pervasive and contributed to a progression in participants from observer or receiver to user of violence. How women justified this transition to using violence fell into four distinct categories: self-defense, driven to violence, proving a point, and protecting others.

Self-defense

In some cases, the woman’s use of violence was an isolated occurrence and in direct reaction to an immediate physical threat from her partner. One woman described the incident leading to her arrest. She had been choked and beaten by her partner during a physical altercation. Then, “he turned and was coming back towards me and that is when I picked up a candle holder and I threw it at him . . . it was purely instinctual . . . It caused a cut. He was bleeding. He called the police.” Another woman describes the fight leading to her arrest: “He had barricaded (the door) . . . he just kept beating me and I kept fighting back and I picked up a knife . . . I stabbed him.” One participant aptly described the reason for using physical violence: “I don’t want to say that being violent is the way to go about it, but when you feel cornered or scared, that’s what you go to.” In the situations described above, the male partners were clearly primary physical aggressors and the women were acting to defend themselves from direct physical harm.

Driven to violence

Women also admitted feeling driven to violence after chronically experiencing verbal and physical violence from their partners. One young woman began to use violence after receiving emotional and physical abuse for some time:

It finally backfired on him, I snapped one day and was like, what am I doing? Why am I letting him control me? He’s hurt me so many other times . . . It was almost like, if I don’t fight back, he’s going to end up killing me.

Another woman described receiving verbal and emotional abuse from her partner throughout their relationship: “He just made me feel so damn low about myself . . . I really do get to a point where I can only put up with so much . . . I just could not take it anymore.” At this point, she expresses her frustration physically by pushing down furniture and scratching her partner in the face. A third woman recounted long-standing verbal, emotional, and physical abuse:

I’ve been trying like crazy to make (my second marriage) work. This was supposed to be for the rest of my life. And it has been abusive . . . in many different ways he has tried to control me, I feel like a puppet. He basically drove me crazy.

All three women described reaching a breaking point where they began to use violence resulting from frustration coupled with feeling stuck in the relationship.

Proving a point

Several of the women described their use of violence becoming a message they wished to convey to others, particularly to their abusers. For example, one participant described her evolution from recipient to perpetrator of partner violence:

Not even a month after he got out of jail . . . it went right back to the same ordeal. But this time when we’d fight I’d push him back . . . I wanted to show him, you can’t do this to me anymore, I’m stronger than you, you can’t mentally put me down anymore. If this is how it’s going to be, I’m going to hurt you.

Another woman shared her experience:

Whenever we would fight, even if it was just a verbal altercation with him, I always felt like I had to get violent ’cause I felt like I wanted him to never speak to me like that again. And I felt if I would show him in a violent way, maybe he wouldn’t do it anymore. I know it doesn’t sound good once I say it but that is how I felt.

In these situations, women accepted violence as a means of control and began to use it as their own currency.

Other participants explained how they used violence to convey a message of strength and self-protection in response to other exposures to violence. For example, one participant was affected by witnessing IPV in the past:

I used to always see my mom get beat by my dad, her boyfriends. That just built up so much anger inside of me cause I was young and I couldn’t do nothing. And now that’s affecting the relationships that I have cause now . . . I’m trying to prevent what happened to my mom happen to me, so I’m doing the opposite.

She went on to explain that she uses violence to pre-emptively show her partners that she will not tolerate abuse. Another participant described how her experience as a victim of bullying influenced her use of violence:

I was in middle school and early high school, I was very badly bullied by a large group of girls over a span of six or seven years and I was constantly physically threatened. And I think that made me believe that in order for people to respect you, you had to be physically threatening.

Protecting others

Finally, women cited protecting others, particularly their children, as the impetus for their behavior. One woman detailed a verbal altercation with her child’s father:

I was appalled that he was saying the things he was saying in front of my son . . . I felt kind of protective of my son at that point, like I don’t want him seeing things like this or hearing things like that . . . that’s why I got so mad.

Another woman asserted that she would likely use violence again in the future if she perceived any type of threat to her children:

I don’t want to go back to jail, but if somebody ever, I mean [my daughter’s] dad or anybody, if somebody ever try to come up and attack me or try to bring some harm to my children and I’m standing there, they got to go. It’s simple, that’s how I was raised, protect your family.

The arrest included a complex interplay between subject, partner, and police

Women had broadly ranging experiences with respect to the dynamic between themselves, their partners, and the police. The context of the arrest within the relationship, who called the police, and prior involvement by police were all important factors affecting the arrest decision.

Who calls police

Police were called by either the participant, her partner, or a third party such as a family member, friend, or neighbor. When women themselves called the police, they were generally seeking help and protection. One woman recalled,

I realized, “Oh he’s really hurting me . . . I don’t know what he could do next . . .” I really felt like I was in danger and that’s why I pushed him off of me and he hit his head off of the table and I called the police.

Sometimes women’s partners would call police, although their motivations could differ from those of women interviewed. One woman shared,

With my baby’s dad . . . he was putting his hands on me . . . and then I got tired of it, fed up, and that’s when I started putting my hands on him . . . But it was all cool and gravy when he was putting his hands on me and I wasn’t doing nothing but then when I started fighting back, it’s like, “Oh I gotta call the cops.”

Yet another woman’s partner feigned calls in the past to police during altercations. He used this as a form of manipulation to prevent her from departing, as she did not want to leave the scene if police were to arrive. She said,

There’s been other times too when he’s like “I’m calling the cops,” so I wait and wait and wait and I don’t go anywhere and the cops never come and that was his way of controlling the situation so I wouldn’t leave.

Another woman described acting in self-defense but her partner pre-emptively calling the police to avoid his own arrest:

[He called the police so] he wouldn’t go to jail, or to get me to go to jail . . . I didn’t touch him, I was trying to get out, ’cause I knew if I fought back it would make it worse. So I was trying to get away from him.

In other instances when the partner calls, a warrant is issued for the woman’s arrest because she left the scene and was not present when police arrived. One participant’s ex-boyfriend let her know that he had called the police after their conflict and a warrant had been issued for her arrest:

I called the [local] police station and they said . . . “You can either come and turn yourself in now or you can wait. But if you wait, it’ll just look worse on your part like you don’t care” . . . And the police actually told me, “We really don’t want to do this.” . . . The one cop actually looked at the other one and said, “Should we even take her in?” And he said, “We have to or else we’ll get in trouble.”

Prior police involvement

Some women had called police in the past for IPV-related conflicts in their relationship. In general, women who were known to police were met with less sympathy with each subsequent call. One participant described her interaction with police after a physical fight:

[The officer] was like, “You know, we’re getting really sick and tired of coming up here. If we get called one more time, we’re taking your child and you both are going to jail.” . . . If you would have talked to me I probably would have told you he’s in my basement right now and he just beat the living s*** out of me . . . I’m scared, he just got out of jail and I want him to leave. But I was just like, “Okay, it won’t happen again . . . I’m so sorry that I had to disturb you from your night.”

Women perceived arrest decisions to be based on a limited understanding of context

Methods of the determination of the perpetrator by police were varied. Arrest decisions often reflect a limited understanding of the context of the conflict and impact women’s use of law enforcement in the future.

Determination of perpetrator

In some cases, women were given an opportunity to explain the situation, but other times, arrests were made based on a literal interpretation of the mandatory arrest law. One woman describes a conflict leading to police involvement:

I was dropping [our children] off . . . he comes outside, he’s yelling, screaming, wanting to fight . . . saying he was going to get me in trouble . . . He starts looking through my papers in my car, we’re tugging with this sign . . . When I let go it scratches him right here (gestures to abdomen). He says I stabbed him. And then he says, “I’m calling the police.” . . . I tell [the police] what happened and they said, “Well he didn’t get stabbed, it looks like a little scratch mark but . . . we have to do our job arresting you.” . . . I guess his mark was better than my mark.

Another woman described a situation where police used misleading information in their arrest decision: “He messed up his knee from playing basketball the day before . . . he tried to make it like I did that . . . They said they had to take me because he was injured.” In an instance when both partners were arrested, another woman explained the decision made by police: “Since both of us had marks on us, they just took us both and said they’re going to send us down to the magistrate and they could sort it out.”

When injuries were used to determine which party would be arrested, the women’s injuries were often unnoticed or did not appear until later:

He pushed me and I pushed him back and as he walked away he ended up hitting his nose off the wall, he fell down a couple of steps. So, he had a gash on his nose. . . [The police] asked like two questions and because they seen his gash, they arrested me . . . By the end of the next day I had bruises all over me, cuts on my arms and whatnot, but just cause his was more visible than mine.

Another woman explained that she did not think to show police her injuries:

I had his bruises into my knee, like his knuckle imprint in my knee . . . I had these recent bruises you know all over me and I never even thought to check my body, like oh, I have to hurry up and find bruises to show the cops.

Limited opportunity to explain

Women expressed a desire for police to have a better understanding of the conflict’s context, including use of self-defense and understanding that they were not necessarily the primary aggressor. One woman described the conflict leading to her arrest and feeling that the situation was not sufficiently evaluated:

[He] was sitting on the porch getting examined and [police were] asking him what happened. There was one [police officer] over with me . . . I’m talking to him and he’s like “Just wait until they come up here to you.” So they came over and the only thing they said, “Well put your hands behind your back [because] we’re going to take you.” I’m like “Why, why is this happening, I’m the one that called you, you’re supposed to be here to help me.”

She concluded from her experience, “I just felt like I shouldn’t have even called them because they didn’t do me any justice at all. They left a man with my kids when he was the one who was trying to hurt me.” This desire for police to evaluate the context for a conflict and prior physical abuse by the partner is also reflected in other women’s words:

The police, maybe they need to be schooled a little bit more in these kinds of issues and the dynamics of what goes on. Especially when it is the woman that is being arrested . . . I’m telling them what has been going on and not only for that night but for all these years and yet they didn’t want to hear anything. So, they didn’t question enough that night.

Women experienced both positive and negative consequences of arrest

While most women reported negative consequences of their arrest, some also endorsed positive consequences.

Impact of arrest on future use of police

Negative consequences associated with the arrest were due to a loss of faith in the police, the humiliation associated with arrest and the jail experience, or legal consequences including a loss of job or future job opportunity. Some women expressed that the police’s means of determination of arrestee and the action taken were unexpected. Because of their arrest experiences, women were reluctant to seek law enforcement help for future conflicts. One participant felt, “If I would not have gotten out of that house he would have killed me. I definitely would have been dead. I thought I’d call the police and they didn’t come to my defense. They didn’t.” Another voiced uncertainty at whether she would seek law enforcement help in the future, instead saying, “I don’t like the system no more, I don’t know to call for help or what to do, stand there and let somebody hurt me?”

Arrest provided perspective or motivation to leave relationship

Women also described their arrest as a learning experience that provided the impetus for them to leave their relationships. One woman said, “I realized that I think I can fix people or take care of people. I need to take care of me now. I understand that. When I got thrown in jail, I got scared straight.” Another described how it helped her end her relationship:

[The arrest] affected me positively . . . I just thought to myself, I let it get to this point, if I continue to be with him it’s going to get worse. Either he’s going to get really hurt and I’m going to be back here for potentially longer, or I’m going to get really hurt.

Court-ordered group has been a positive experience

Women also universally felt that court-ordered groups were helpful as a source of both information and support. One woman described how it has helped her understand past experiences with IPV:

Group really helped me out because . . . in my past relationships I was being abused and I didn’t know I was abused. I always thought abuse was physical and verbally. I didn’t know abuse was like, when somebody says you can’t go to church, or abuse when somebody’s telling you not to take your medicine, or withholding you from doing certain things. I just learned a lot.

Women also learned techniques to de-escalate conflict in future relationships: “I’ve learned to basically assert myself and not be aggressive . . . I don’t let him push the buttons he always pushed to get me started.” Finally, women viewed group as a source of support. One woman says, “I think if I would have known about these classes . . . I think it would have helped me out a lot cause it makes me feel a lot better talking to other people who went through it.”

Discussion

Our study suggests that, despite diverse individual experiences, there are major commonalities in experiences of women arrested for IPV. Among the women we interviewed, few were falsely arrested for an instance of immediate self-defense against a violent partner. Rather, many women began to wield violence after experiencing chronic abuse and feeling driven to its use, or in an effort to “hold their own” after absorbing various types of pervasive chronic violence in the past. In other words, women began to view the use of violence as a method of demonstrating strength, toughness, and self-protection after experiencing it themselves.

Our study supports the current understanding of experiential factors influencing women’s use of violence. In 2002, Dasgupta (2002) introduced the concept of an “ecological nested model” for conceptualizing women’s use of violence, arguing that social, historical, institutional, and individual variables are all relevant factors contributing to perpetration of IPV. Our findings support this model, as experiences with peers, past relationships, and social attitudes by friends and family all influenced the use of violence by women in our population. Our study also adds to known motivations for violence. A previous observational study focused on women in court-ordered groups found that women used violence instrumentally in defense or as a way to act out in frustration (S. L. Miller & Meloy, 2006). Prior research also elucidated that while male batterers were motivated to use violence by the desire to gain control over their partners, women most frequently cited self-defense, retribution, and coercion (Kernsmith, 2005; Swan & Snow, 2003, 2006). Our findings clearly reflect self-defense and retribution; coercion was not a clear motivator within our participants’ experiences. We add to this list the motivator of protecting others, particularly children. In a 2006 article, Johnson outlines four types of violent intimate relationships, with motivations for violence ranging from the traditional control model to situational couple violence (Johnson, 2006). The nuances between different types of relationship violence were reflected in the experiences of women in our study, from reacting in self-defense after experiencing chronic abuse to striking out in frustration.

Our study contributes to the current body of knowledge by providing further evidence of the unintended impact of mandatory arrest laws and building greater understanding of the complex interplay between users and receivers of violence. It is an initial step in elucidating the context of arrest for women arrested for IPV, including past experiences contributing to the arrest, the pre-existing dynamic of police with women and partner, and the arrest experience itself. While women were found to use physical force for means other than self-defense, our findings make it clear that the motivation for and frequency of violence of women in our study were very different from their male counterparts.

There are limitations to our study, including the inherent nature of the qualitative study design. We used a purposive sample population, which is not intended to capture a comprehensive or generalizable view of the phenomena of female arrest for IPV. Rather, our study was designed to allow for an in-depth view of a subset of women’s experiences, guided by their own words. Despite our diverse group of participants, we noted redundancy or thematic saturation (Corbin et al., 2008; Giacomini & Cook, 2000) by the fifth interview. Another limitation related to the study design is the possible tendency of participants to bias their narratives to portray themselves in a more favorable manner. However, we found the women to be quite open and candid. They generally took responsibility for their actions and behavior. Our study also did not include any women in same-sex relationships, although women in same-sex relationships were not excluded in enrollment criteria. In addition, with the exception of one participant, all women were native to the United States and either White or African American, and we were unable to perform comparisons based on race or other demographic characteristics. Finally, the selection of these women to attend court-ordered group was influenced by their determination by the courts as appropriate for a more rehabilitative punishment in lieu of criminal prosecution; therefore, women who were arrested for acts of greater violence or who were arrested repeatedly for IPV were excluded.

This study is provisional in nature; rather than serving as a definitive work, it illustrates a need for greater understanding of the sequelae of mandatory arrest law enactment. While the breadth of knowledge possibly gained in this study was limited by geography and time, we can identify several applications for the information learned. Law enforcement may use this information to be better informed of context when called to an IPV conflict. Mandatory arrest laws are not infallible and greater awareness must be paid to injuries of both parties. Police should be made aware of the possibility that male partners may falsely portray themselves as victims or even use calls to the police as methods of controlling or manipulating their victims. In addition, attention must be paid to the pattern of prior involvement rather than isolating a specific incident when considering arrest. Stronger collaborations between police and community IPV advocates and the use of specialized IPV units are two suggested approaches toward the goal of improved understanding. Within the legal system, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and judges must be made aware of the phenomena of women’s evolution from receivers to users of violence, and provide appropriate referrals to local IPV agencies for all women arrested. From a social services standpoint, court-ordered groups such as the ones from which participants were recruited should be better tailored to meet participants’ needs. For example, it is important to recognize that women arrested for IPV have often previously been subjected to IPV and one focus can be on advising women toward alternate plans of action (e.g., safety planning or techniques to de-escalate violence). Finally, a greater awareness of IPV and improved information and access to resources must be realized so that women can receive help not only after an arrest, but before they feel the need to perpetrate violence.

Although some aspects of human interaction can be portrayed in simple dichotomous categories, many of the relationships described by our participants did not fall under a simple victim/perpetrator construct. Rather, a woman’s violent actions and reactions often evolved within her relationship, influenced by prior experiences with violence, including those with an abusive partner. This study underscores the need for a greater understanding of the complex interplay between victimization and perpetration of partner violence among women, and the necessity of advocacy for more appropriate methods for making arrest decisions, guiding justice system responses to these situations, and developing interventions for couples experiencing IPV. Recognition that women’s use of partner violence often represented either a retaliatory or self-defensive gesture within the context of prior victimization suggests that victims’ interventions should not only focus on empowerment but also provide skills and strategies to avoid temptation to adopt aggression or violence as primary methods of self-protection. By better understanding the phenomena of female IPV arrest, we can move toward better informing police and the legal system, reforming arrest policies, and designing better resources for intervention and recidivism.

Footnotes

Authors’ Note

This work was performed at the Women’s Center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) declared the following potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by grants from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation and the National Institute of Mental Health (Medical Student Fellowship G. Haas: 2R25MH054318) to the University of Pittsburgh to fund Clinical Research Fellow Simiao Li.

Author Biographies

Simiao Li graduated in 2014 from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine with a combined MD/MS in Clinical Research as part of the Clinical Scientist Training Program. Her professional interests are violence prevention research and medical education. She is a resident in Emergency Medicine at Northwestern University.

Ani Levick is a legal advocate at the Women’s Center and Shelter of Greater Pittsburgh and has more than 10 years’ experience advocating for survivors of IPV. Her work includes the facilitation of court-ordered groups for women arrested for IPV.

Adelaide Eichman is a pediatrician at the Child Advocacy Center at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and is an assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

Judy C. Chang is an associate professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences and in the Department of Medicine (secondary appointment) at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. She is a health services researcher who has performed research regarding IPV for the past 15 years.

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