How dangerous are domestic encounters to police officers? This question, posed by police, policymakers, and researchers, has been answered through anecdotes and assumptions, and more recently by empirical data. But the findings have been mixed. Police training manuals have focused on the danger of family disputes, citing high figures reported by the FBI of law enforcement officers killed. Researchers on family violence (Straus, et al., 1980), violent police-citizen encounters (Lester, 1980), and police response to spouse assaults (Parnas, 1967, and Buchanan and Perry 1986) agree that the domestic disturbance is the most dangerous police activity. Other researchers dispute this contention. Margarita (1980), Konstantin (1984), and Garner and Clemmer (1986) have found that robberies and burglaries are more dangerous than domestic disputes.
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