ABSTRACT
Despite 30 years of feminist criminology frameworks inculcated into the field of research, issues involving gender frequently surface. Based on gender, individuals continue to be marginalized and ignored in research related to crime and justice. Their voices may be sought in the collection of data, such as when intimate partner violence (IPV) victims are interviewed to assess the impact of criminal justice system responses, mandatory and pro-arrest policies, domestic violence courts, and batterer intervention programs. Although efforts have been made to include research findings when implementing policy, many times these data are left behind as researchers’ findings are disseminated into policy. Decades after the seminal mandatory arrest study conducted by Sherman and Berk (1984) revealed that mandatory arrest would reduce revictimization, replication studies documented that the policy is not equally effective in minority communities nor for those perpetrators who are unemployed and marginalized (Sherman, 1992). Yet legislators failed to heed the findings from these replication studies and all 50 states continue to have some IPV mandatory or pro-arrest policies despite the potential harmful and negative impact on minority women (American Bar Association Commission on Domestic Violence, 2007).
