The impact of mandatory arrest laws on domestic violence in times of economic stress

We test the effectiveness of mandatory arrest laws to suppress domestic violence under changing levels of community-wide economic stress. While existing economic scholarship focuses upon the influence of arrest laws and financial strain independently of one another, we provide a meaningful bridge across these two factors to assess whether arrest laws are effective when communities need them most. Using county-level monthly unemployment rates and national crime data for years 2000 to 2015, we examine changes in incidents of intimidation and assault between intimate partners across states with and without mandatory arrest laws. After controlling for baseline county characteristics, we document the subsequent increase in domestic violence from rising rates of unemployment. We find the efficacy of arrest laws to mitigate intimate partner violence is strongest when unemployment increases. However, these results do not hold for more severe forms of domestic violence. Our results suggest that while mandatory arrest laws are not a single solution to domestic violence, they lessen the adverse effects of rising unemployment rates.