Domestic violence has existed for as long as man has been on this Earth. In the past it was thought to be something private. The families involved were the ones that had to figure out how to deal (or not deal) with the problem. This mind set changed when a study was done in Minneapolis Minnesota in the 1980’s. This study not only impacted the actual area it was conducted in, but the way domestic violence offenders were dealt with by police officers across the country.
In early 1981 through mid-1982, an experiment was conducted under a grant from the National Institute of Justice; this experiment became known as: The Minneapolis Domestic Violence Experiment. “The experiment was conducted within the Minneapolis Police Department in combination with the Police Foundation,” (Lawrence and Berk). The experiment was conducted to solve an ongoing debate between three different organizations; each having their own views on how police should handle domestic violence responses. There was the traditional police approach which had been to largely ignore the problem. Even when suspects were arrested, it was the justice systems mindset that “offenders will not be punished by the courts even if they are arrested, and that the problems are basically not solvable” (Lawrence and Berk) was one view. A second view came from clinical psychologists. They recommended that police “actively mediate or arbitrate disputes underlying the violence, restoring peace but not making any arrests” (Lawrence and Berk), believing that if the police were able to somehow counsel the both the victim and the perpetrator then the problem of domestic violence would solve itself. The third view came from the emerging women’s rights movements, and the many subsequent “Women’s groups and the Police Executive Research Forum, of treating the violence as a criminal offense subject to arrest,” (Lawrence and Berk). Each of these three organizations views had valid arguments; and the debate...