Domestic Violence And Police Time

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.