ABSTRACT
Victims may be reluctant to use the criminal justice system, and police may still resist arresting men who assault their wives. Factors promoting economic dependency such as husband's unemployment, housewife status, and poverty deter victims of severe violence from calling police. The forms of husband-to-wife violence analyzed in this paper include both the Minor Violence and Severe Violence indexes. The percent of victims of minor or severe assaults who reported the violence to the police were then cross-tabulated by race, income, employment status, urbanicity, and alcohol use during the violent incident. Examination of characteristics associated with reports to police revealed that severity of violence is the most important correlate. The formal and informal sanctions they considered were retaliatory violence, police intervention, separation and divorce, and social condemnation. The most frequently used police techniques are calming the participants, listening to the partners' stories, warning the parties, ordering husbands out, and breaking up the fight.
