Intimate Partner Violence Incidence and Characteristics: Idaho NIBRS 1995 to 2001 Data

• DOI: 10.1177/0887403404267771
• Author: Salvador P. Vazquez,Mary K. Stohr,Marcus Purkiss
• Date: 01 March 2005
• Published date: 01 March 2005
• Subject Matter: Articles

10.1177/0887403404267771CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY REVIEW / March 2005Vazquez et al. / IPV INCIDENCE AND CHARACTERISTICS

Intimate Partner Violence

Incidence and Characteristics:

Idaho NIBRS 1995 to 2001 Data

Salvador P. Vazquez

Idaho State Police Department

Mary K. Stohr

Marcus Purkiss

Boise State University

Aggregate research on intimate partner violence (IPV) and its context presents spe-

cial challenges. It was not until the development of the National Incident-Based

Reporting System (NIBRS) that it was possible to efficiently cull out the IPV incidents

from other crimes in police reports. In this research, we use 7 years of NIBRS data

from one rural mountain state to identify the situational descriptors that serve as the

ingredientsin the “chemistry of crime.”We found that there is a tendency for IPV inci-

dents to occur late at night, on the weekends, and on certain distinctive holidays. Such

information may confirm what many have known anecdotally and help policy makers

to best direct scarce prevention-related resources.

Keywords: NIBRS; victimization; domestic violence; intimate partner violence

The amount of crime is at times little known and less understood. But this

dark figure of crime has been somewhat illuminated with advanced data

collection and analysis techniques, as represented by the National Incident-

Based Reporting System (NIBRS). NIBRS data are more complete in the

documentation of the breadth of crime and the characteristics of its occur-

rence. In contrast, intimate partner violence (IPV) or domestic violence

crime characteristics have often been obfuscated by crime reporting under

99

AUTHORS’ NOTE: The authors would like to thank the staff at the Idaho State Police

Department, including Shellee Smith-Daniels, STOP Grants Administrator, the Bureau of

Criminal Identification, and the police and sheriff agency personnel across Idaho who col-

lected and reported these data. Please address all correspondence to Mary K. Stohr, Depart-

ment of Criminal Justice, Boise State University, 1910 University Drive, Boise, ID 83725.

Criminal Justice Policy Review, Volume 16, Number 1, March 2005 99-114

DOI: 10.1177/0887403404267771

© 2005 Sage Publications

the traditional Uniform Crime Reporting techniques, which has been too

narrowly focused and has not made relational connections possible.

Yet, it is the characteristics of crime, such as when and where it tends to

occur, not just a delineation of offender and victim descriptors, that policy

makers, the police, and the public need to understand if they hope to engage

in prevention. As Felson (1998) explains in his book Crime & Everyday

Life, much crime occurs because we don’t understand how to manipulate

the how,when, and where of it to make crime less routine and thus less com-

mon. This is especially true for crimes of domestic violence that are gener-

ally less understood because of the limitations of the UCRs, the recall

required for victimization surveys, and because such crimes were, until the

past two decades, largely dismissed by official criminal justice actors asa

family affair or private matter.

In this article, we use 7 years of NIBRS data to explore the incidence and

characteristics of IPV in one rural mountain state—Idaho. Although Idaho

is not likely to be representative of larger and more urbanized states in terms

of index crimes, there is little reason to believe that IPV characteristicsin

Idaho aren’t generalizable to all states. Times of the day, the week, the

month, the year, and the location of such crimes is probably fairly typical

across states.

POLICE REPORTS, NIBRS, AND IPV

The difficulties in assessing the amount and characteristics of IPV using

police report data or the Uniform Crime Reports (UCRs) are legend. The

faults inherent in this data include a dearth of information on offenders and

victims, numbers of incidents, and types of crimes covered (Saltzman,

Mercy, & Rhodes, 1992; Thompson, Saltzman, & Bibel, 1999).

Researchers have often lamented the reluctance or inability of victims to

report and the police to arrest offenders (Feder, 1996; Felson, Messner,

Hoskin, & Deane, 2002; Kane, 1999; McLeod, 1983). Victim willingness

to report is tied to privacy and reprisal concerns, their own circumstances,

and their desire to protect the offender (Felson et al., 2002). Victimcoopera-

tion with the police is often problematic and premised on the presence of

other factors (e.g., videotaped testimony and/or the relationship with victim/

witness personnel; Dawson & Dinovitzer, 2001).

The police disposition decisions in intimate partner situations are influ-

enced by such variables as characteristics of, and the relationship between,

the victim or offender, attitudes and situational variables like the offender

100 CRIMINAL JUSTICE POLICY REVIEW / March 2005