Influence of Age, Race, and Gender on Type of Offense Committed by Domestic Violence Perpetrator in Davidson County, Tennessee
Abstract
D Domestic violence is known to be a growing problem in the social world, and increasingly in the realm of law enforcement as a push for criminal accountability for domestic violence continues. As research on protection and recognition of domestic violence victims continues, this study aims to consider more deeply the domestic violence perpetrator. Specifically, the purpose of this study is to determine if certain demographic factors, (age, race, and gender) have influence over the type of offense that domestic violence perpetrators are committing (misdemeanor or felony). This study was conducted through secondary data received from the Metropolitan of Nashville Police Department. The sample size for this study is the arrest records received from MNPD which detailed the entire population of domestic violence related offenders in the Davidson County, Tennessee, between (and including) the years 2014-2018 (31,743 individuals). The data collected is only on domestic violence offenders that were arrested, and therefore not the total population of domestic violence offenders in the area. The entire data set was stripped of identifiers and broken down to include only the age, race, gender, and type of offense committed by each perpetrator. The data was then adjusted to be utilized in the SPSS data analysis program. The results of this study indicate that there are statistically significant relationships between each independent variable and the dependent variable studied. While age of perpetrators only showed a weak negative correlation at the .005 level, both age and gender were found to have weak negative correlations at the .001 level. It can be determined that the age, race, or gender of a domestic violence perpetrator each have individual influence over the type of offense offenders may commit. While this study was successful in determining relationships between primarily African American offenders and Caucasian offenders, there was little data present on the type of offenses committed by arrestees of other races in the Davidson County area. Inquiry into the limited arrest rate of other races should be considered in further research. Additionally, this study was unable to consider the specific victims of each perpetrator and how their demographics influenced their victimization.
Subject Area
Criminology|Ethnic studies|Gender studies
Recommended Citation
Georgia Nejus,
"Influence of Age, Race, and Gender on Type of Offense Committed by Domestic Violence Perpetrator in Davidson County, Tennessee"
(2019).
ETD Collection for Tennessee State University.
Paper AAI13814475.
https://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/dissertations/AAI13814475