By Roberto Santos and Rachel Santos   

Domestic violence is an ongoing concern for both the police and the community, given its frequency, repeated nature, and seriousness. Research shows that the ability to intervene during early stages of emotional and verbal abuse or less physically injurious violence is critical to preventing future violence (Buzawa, Buzawa, and Starke 2017; Campbell et al. 2007; Campbell and Messing 2017). Domestic violence, which is also referred to as domestic abuse or family violence, is one or a pattern of incidents of controlling, coercive, threatening, degrading, or violent behavior. Intimate partner violence (IPV) occurs between current or former spouses or intimate partners or between individuals who have a child in common. Non-IPV occurs between individuals within a domestic circle—for example, immediate family members, other relatives, or caretakers. In any of these circumstances, the key is that there is a close relationship between the offender(s) and the victim(s). As the first responders, police are uniquely poised to play a key role in assisting social service and public health efforts to prevent and reduce domestic violence. Police may see problematic relationships and families before victim advocates, doctors, and other service providers are even aware there is a problem. Importantly, when serious domestic violence crimes do occur and the results are severe, often the community and the media ask how many times the police responded to the address and what actions the police took to prevent the crime. Consequently, identifying potentially violent situations as well as connecting victims and their families to resources and victim services, including emergency housing and legal services, as early as possible is critical to preventing escalation of the violence. Domestic-related calls for service are one of the most frequent categories law enforcement agencies respond to and are one of the most dangerous calls for officers. Yet many of these calls do not constitute a domestic violence crime or trigger an arrest. In law enforcement agencies around the United States, dispatchers use a “domestic disturbance” or “domestic violence” call type to alert responding officers to potential domestic violence issues based on the brief information provided by citizens who call 911. Once an officer arrives on scene and does an initial investigation, there may be no probable cause or even an allegation of violence, so no report is required to be taken. Because of this, the reality is that many domestic-related calls are cleared by officers without taking a report.1 Because most proactive domestic violence responses are initiated by a crime report, identifying repeat occurrences of noncriminal calls for service presents an opportunity for police to respond proactively with the potential to prevent future incidents of domestic violence. . Importantly, the most dangerous time can be when victims reach out for help or take the first step to leave an abusive relationship, which might explain why they do not make direct allegations—because they  This guide provides a process for proactive police response to short-term domestic-related problems that is encompassed within a larger proactive crime reduction approach called Stratified Policing. Stratified Policing is an organizational model that includes a framework and specific processes to accomplish the institutionalization of a multidimensional set of evidence-based proactive crime reduction strategies (Santos and Santos 2020). Stratified Policing has been developed to (1) provide police leaders a clear path for implementation and institutionalization of proactive crime reduction modeled after current police processes; (2) incorporate practical theory and evidence-based practices from place-based, problem-solving, person-focused, and community-based approaches; (3) use crime analysis to identify and prioritize crime problems to be addressed realistically by different levels within the organization; (4) lay out a specific and adaptable framework for incorporating small changes by rank and division into daily activities that all contribute to the larger practical approach; (5) use time from individuals throughout the organization as a resource and become more efficient without requiring additional or specialized resources; (6) ensure that individuals and divisions within the organization contribute based on what is realistic and neither is overburdened with responsibility or the work being done; (7) incorporate multifaceted formal and informal accountability that is fair and transparent; and (8) raise the expectations for everyone in the organization to contribute to crime reduction (Santos and Santos 2020, 6). The process described here is the application of one component of Stratified Policing for the shortterm problem of repeat calls for service at residences, called domestic-related repeat incidents or DRRI. Although this guide focuses on a particular type of activity, the process can also be used for other types of repeat calls for service, such as suspicious activity, drug activity, and alarms.     

Washington, DC: Office of Community Oriented Policing Services. 2023. 44p.