The results of the study, showing a deterrent effect for arrest, had a "virtually unprecedented impact in changing then-current police practices.
"[2] Subsequently, numerous states and law enforcement agencies enacted policies for mandatory arrest, without warrant, for domestic violence cases in which the responding police officer had probable cause that a crime had occurred.
Domestic violence historically has been viewed as a private family matter that need not involve government or criminal justice intervention.
[3] Before the early 1970s, police in the United States favored a "hands-off" approach to domestic violence calls, with arrest only used as a last resort.
[1] Statistics on incidence of domestic violence, published in the late 1970s, helped raise public awareness of the problem and increase activism.
[9] In the late 1970s and early 1980s, feminists and battered women's advocacy groups were calling on police to take domestic violence more seriously and change intervention strategies.
[10] In some instances, these groups took legal action against police departments, including in Oakland, California and New York City, to get them to make arrests in domestic violence cases.
[2] Many U.S. police departments responded to the study, adopting a mandatory arrest policy for spousal violence cases with probable cause.
[7] The Houston and Dallas Police Departments were also quick to change their approach to domestic disturbance calls, and make more arrests.
[18] The laws "require the police to make arrests in domestic violence cases when there was probable cause to do so, regardless of the wishes of the victim.
"[19] Before the laws were put into effect, police officers were required to witness the abuse occurring first hand prior to making an arrest.
This "mediation" consisted of a variety of approaches, including attempts by officers to convince the parties to reconcile immediately at the scene or to use formal alternative dispute resolution programs.
Police Officers are trained to deduce who the primary aggressor is in a domestic violence dispute, leading to the arrest of the assailant and not the victim.
The officer must also be able to identify the "predominant aggressor" [24] Research has consistently reported an increase in the use of arrest for domestic violence in the United States.
[2] The follow-up period of six months may have been too short to capture the episodic and cyclical patterns that can occur with domestic violence.
[29] In addition, the Minneapolis Experiment did not measure whether being arrested increased the offenders' fear of future sanctions, a crucial element in deterrence theory.
First, a meta-analysis of the published findings based on official police records from the Minneapolis and the SARP experiments reported a deterrent effect for arrest.