POLICE RESPONSE TO DOMESTIC VIOLENCE: SITUATIONS INVOLVING VETERANS EXHIBITING SIGNS OF MENTAL ILLNESS ∗ FRED E. MARKOWITZ 1 and AMY C. WATSON 2 1 Department of Sociology, Northern Illinois University 2 Jane Addams School of Social Work, University of Illinois at Chicago KEYWORDS: mental illness, violence, veterans, police, military, stigma, attribution theory Drawing on attribution theory, research on police discretion, and public attitudes to- ward mental illness, we examine attributional processes in police decision making in re- sponse to domestic violence situations involving veterans and nonveterans with signs of mental illness. Using data from experimental vignettes varying veteran status, victim in- jury, and suspect compliance administered to a sample of 309 police officers, the results indicate that 1) veterans are perceived as less responsible for troublesome behavior but more dangerous than nonveterans, 2) suspects’ veteran status has a significant effect on officers’ preference for mental health treatment versus arrest, and 3) part of the effect of veteran status on officer response is mediated by internal and external attributions for problematic behavior and by perceptions of dangerousness. The study empiri- cally demonstrates countervailing processes in police decision making—recognition of the causes for troublesome behavior and the need for mental health treatment on the one hand and concern for community safety and enforcing the law on the other. Police officers are among those most likely to deal with persons with mental illness in a variety of crisis situations (Engel and Silver, 2001; Lamb, Weinberger, and DeCuir, 2002). When police officers recognize that suspects have mental health problems, their options include arresting the suspect, bringing them to hospitals for psychiatric treatment, or resolving the issue informally (Teplin, 2000; Watson and Angell, 2007). The police officer’s preference for more therapeutic (treatment) as opposed to punitive measures (arrest) may be attributed to linking aggressive behavior to external causes beyond individuals’ control (Corrigan et al., 2003). In this study, we examine attributional pro- cesses as they apply to domestic violence involving persons with mental health problems. Drawing from the literature on police discretion in domestic violence and mental health crisis situations, as well as from theoretical approaches to attributions regarding mental ∗ This research was supported in part by NIMH P20 MH085981. The authors are grateful to Douglas Engelman and Anjali Fulambarker for their research assistance. We also appreciate the very helpful comments provided by Richard Felson and Kirk Miller. Direct correspondence to Fred E. Markowitz, Department of Sociology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115 (e-mail: fredm@niu.edu). C  2015 American Society of Criminology doi: 10.1111/1745-9125.12067 CRIMINOLOGY Volume 53 Number 2 231–252 2015 231