Commentators maintain that the criminal justice system deals differently, and therefore unfairly, with victims of spousal assault. Quantitative and qualitative studies supporting this contention, however, generally fail to make appropriate comparisons with the processing of like crimes. Police arrest rates for spousal violence, for example, are inappropriately compared with those for crime in general. Extrapolating from police arrest practices to other criminal justice processes involves the unwarranted assumption that what is true of one aspect of the system applies throughout.
This study compares the processing of cases of spousal assault with that of acquaintance and stranger assaults. An examination of 332 cases in two regional courts of summary jurisdiction in Australia reveals no evidence that spousal assault cases were treated differently to other assaults at the charging, plea, or sentencing stages. The study concludes that the goal of parity of treatment may not promote fairness, nor be appropriate to spousal assault cases.
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