Domestic violence mandatory arrest policies and arrests for same-sex and opposite-sex intimate partner violence after legalization of same-sex marriage in the United States

Historically, legal protection for survivors of intimate partner violence (IPV) in same-sex relationships has been lacking. This changed with the 2015 United States Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which invalidated restrictions on same-sex marriage and made legal protections more widely available to survivors of same-sex IPV. In this paper, we analyze the arrest decision in cases of same-sex and opposite-sex IPV using data from the 2016 National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS)–the first year of data post-Obergefell. We also compare our results to previous research and both replicate and extend earlier analyses to see if there are changes in arrest post-Obergefell. Since 1977, states have adopted one of the three types of domestic violence arrest laws: mandatory arrest, pro-arrest, and discretionary arrest. While mandatory arrest laws increase the likelihood of arrest for all and female same-sex couples, they do not have an impact on arrests for male same-sex couples. Pro-arrest laws do not increase the likelihood of arrest for same-sex couples. Finally, the decreased likelihood of arrest when the victim is ‘nonwhite’ is attributable to the impact of the victim being Black. These results are discussed in the context of previous research on IPV.