Towards an enhanced understanding of intimate partner violence arrest and recidivism with an emphasis on female offenders

Thesis (M.A., Sociology)--California State University, Sacramento, 2013.This thesis attempts to expand the explanatory framework beyond just gender and classical theory to include community level variables. Therefore, the theoretical frameworks guiding this study are the concepts of concentrated disadvantage and collective efficacy. The data used for this study comes from three data sets. First a dataset consisting of 8,461 IPV arrests processed by the Sacramento County District Attorney???s office and ???closed??? between July 1, 1999 and December 18th, 2001. Secondly, a dataset was developed from the Bureau of the Census 2000 zip code data creating a ???concentrated disadvantage??? index composed of six different indicators for thirty-nine of the forty-nine geographical zip codes in Sacramento County. Lastly, the third subset comes from the California Department of Justice (DOJ) who provided arrest histories for all 892 female arrestees in the original sample of 8,461. A random sample of 450 cases was selected for detailed analysis including IPV recidivism rates as well as number and type of non-IPV arrests. IPV arrest rates for males and females were positively associated with community concentrated disadvantage. IPV arrest rates (both female and male) were positively correlated with total crime rate for communities within the Sacramento Police department???s jurisdiction. The odds of an offender with a prior IPV arrest committing IPV is 3.585 times as great as that of a person without prior IPV. Finally, the results of this study indicate that those who are married with children have a 19.3% chance of recidivating whereas those offenders who are not married and with no children have a 37.7% chance.Sociolog