Measuring the Detention Time for Dropped Misdemeanor Domestic Violence Charges in Cook County Jail

• In Event: 2433 - Law and Gender

Abstract

In this paper, I consider if alleged violence within domestic relationships results in unique kinds of interventions (or inactions) from law enforcement actors. Specifically, I explore custodial detention for dropped misdemeanor domestic violence charges in Cook County, IL. My analytical strategy applies competing risk methods to 2016 administrative data from the Cook County Department of Corrections (CCDOC).

I begin by sketching an empirical debate in the legal literature on domestic violence. On one hand, some argue that criminal law differentially ignores violence if it occurs in the domestic sphere. Here, it is argued that traditional legal paradigms of family autonomy and privacy endure to the present day. On the other hand, scholars counter that innovations like protection orders have opened the domestic sphere to unprecedented levels of state scrutiny and criminal control. In short, this second position finds domestic violence to be overly policed. From these two positions, I test three competing hypotheses empirically with my 2016 CCDOC data.

In support of non-interventionists, I find that defendants accused of domestic violence have a higher risk of dropped release than those accused of public violence. That said, I also find detention length differs by demographic (race, age) and legal covariates, including the impact of protection order violations. Surprisingly, I find protection order violations to significantly increase the relative risk of release on dropped charges for those detained for domestic violence. This may support the claim that protection orders replace preventative detention in misdemeanor domestic violence cases (Suk 2006).

Given this finding, in subsequent drafts of this paper, I will attempt to account for this surprising relationship between protection orders and custodial detention. To this end, I plan to look within dropped cases. This final step will allow a closer look at the relationship between detention and the reasons and actors motivating protection-order violation charges to be dropped.

Author

• Kyla Bourne, University of Chicago