Many Arizona street-level police officers and sheriff’s deputies report that they are skeptical of the ability of Arizona’s “pro-arrest” policy to reduce domestic violence, frustrated by a perceived lack of follow-up from prosecutors, and often at odds with victims whose predicaments they may not fully understand.

Domestic violence is a major social problem throughout Arizona, and a major daily challenge for law enforcement officers. Every day in Arizona, domestic violence injures victims, damages property, destroys families, breeds further crime and anti-social behavior, and perpetuates itself in younger generations. Like most states, Arizona has "criminalized" domestic violence (DV) by adopting laws and policies that bolster law enforcement officers’ arrest powers and require them to arrest suspects under certain circumstances.

This brief, the third issue in the "Criminal Justice Issues for Arizona" series, reveals that Pinal County's specialized court for domestic-violence cases offers some promising results for dealing with this common and complex offense. This report contains an analysis of data collected in the Pinal County Domestic Violence Database, which as of April 2008 contained 666 case records of domestic-violence offenders who were processed by one of the three courts. The database also contained information on a comparison group of offenders; however, these offenders are not included in this analysis because of insufficient numbers. Court officials are currently developing a more appropriate comparison group for use in a subsequent analysis. Table 3 presents the frequency and percent of offenses by levels of education: 8th grade and below, some high school, high school diploma, some college, college graduate, post-graduate degree, and unknown. Key findings include: (1) Offenders showed a significant increase in their self-reported coping abilities and in their satisfaction with the criminal-justice system during their period of supervision; (2) Offenders showed a significant decrease in their self-reported propensity for abusiveness to an intimate partner during their period of supervision; and (3) Only 9% of offenders committed another offense while in the program.

A grassroots dialogue-to-action program designed to inspire bottom-up collaboration on issues of domestic violence proved to be a success and several important lessons were learned to help full implementation. This briefing evaluates the pilot program of the Purple Ribbon Study Circles Project, which ran in six cities in Greater Phoenix from September through December 2008.

Domestic violence is Phoenix’s most commonly reported violent crime, but many suspects’ cases are dismissed almost immediately after arrest, and many others are freed from jail without the supervision recommended by a standard risk-analysis. Risk Management reports these findings among others from analysis of data collected by Phoenix Municipal Court on misdemeanor domestic violence (DV) suspects booked into Maricopa County jails over two years.

This follow-up to the 2001 landmark report, "Five Shoes Waiting to Drop on Arizona's Future," focuses on the projected future of the state if Arizona fails to address its Latino educational attainment gap. The publication is more of an economic impact statement than an education report, with indicators pointing out consequences and contributions, depending on action or inaction in closing the gap of Arizona's future workforce.

Throughout Arizona and the Southwest, the odds are against high achievement in schools with a mostly Latino, mostly poor student enrollment. Some schools, however, "beat the odds" and achieve consistently high results or show steady gains. Why do these schools succeed where others fail? Using the methodology of business guru Jim Collins from his book "Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...and Others Don't," the authors of this report found 12 elementary and middle schools in Arizona--schools whose students are mostly Latino and mostly poor--that are "beating the odds" on reading and math scores. The authors compared them with similar schools that are performing poorly. The comparisons yielded many insights that are contrary to conventional wisdom. One key result is the unearthing of six elements of success that can translate into broader messages for education policy and strategy. The report recommends the creation of leadership programs for principals and teachers and calls for the creation of a dissemination mechanism to bring "best practices" into every school in Arizona.