 "85% of spousal murder cases has had prior contact with the police, 50% have been called at least 5 times." (256)

 "85-95% of assault victims and 2/3 of domestic murder victims are women."(256)

All of these statistics taken from "Battered Justice" by Joan Meir in American Culture and the Media show that even if and when police intervene in domestic violence incidents the cases were not taken seriously. Many judges just believe there are " more serious matters to contend to"(257). There are several reasons that police, prosecutors and judges don't take domestic violence cases seriously, but at the core is the belief that wife beating is not a crime.

In 1976, twelve battered wives sued the city police department and family courts for failing to arrest and prosecute men who attacked their wives, just because they were married. In some cases, the police refused to arrest because they had not seen the assault. Many states have historically prohibited arrest on misdemeanor but not felony charges unless the officer witnessed the crime.

In the rare cases that prosecutors press charges the crime is usually considered a misdemeanor, rather than a felony regardless of the severity of the assault. When pressed for reasons for dropping charges, many argue insufficient evidence and that many women are not willing to press charges at all. Why some victims drop charges is unclear; fear and intimidation is sometimes a factor. When women ask for help, they sometimes are not satisfied because the judges frequently refuse to grant orders of protection when the parties are married or have been seeing each other. The Minnesota Federal District court firmly stated that "a man is not allowed to physically abuse or endanger a women merely because he is her husband ."(258). This dropped the rate of domestic violence drastically in Minnesota over the next few months.

A firm criminal justice response has seemed to work, in most cases. After Minnesota instituted a mandatory arrest program, 70 out of 86 women reported at the end of two years that the combine assistance of police, courts and shelters were helpful in ending their abusers' violence. One former abuser said in the National Institute of Justice report :"It was su

Some common words found in the essay are:
Jean Cook, Culture Media, Joan Meier, Federal District, Dosen't Hurt, Battered Justice, Institute Justice, Joan Meir, domestic violence, battered women, joan meir, press charges, police courts, reading essay, violence reoccurred, battered justice, misdemeanor felony, 256 ,
Approximate Word count = 796
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)