Nearly 1,000 domestic violence arrests in the Bronx over the first three months of 2025 were not prosecuted by the District Attorney’s office because victims declined to cooperate with prosecutors — a number that points to deeper issues that continue to hamper law enforcement efforts.
The unwillingness of domestic violence victims to work with authorities, experts say, is fueled by an array of factors that include poverty, limited access to social services and a distrust of authorities, experts said.
Prof. Nicole Saint-Louis, social work program director at Lehman College, said the Bronx statistics aren’t completely shocking given the various systemic issues — many victims are poor and don’t have access to the resources needed.
Moving out of the home, for example, could force victims into shelters. Victims also worry their abusers will beat them again if they cooperate with prosecutors — and often don’t have confidence the system can protect them.
“Instead of asking why they won’t cooperate the question should be, ‘What will make survivors feel safe enough to cooperate,” Saint-Louis said.
Bronx DA Darcel Clark said her office is working on ways to better help domestic violence victims.
“Even if there is ultimately no [prosecution], we continue to offer services to victims,” said spokeswoman Patrice O’Shaughnessy. “Our goal is to ensure that the first time we interact with a complainant we are offering a helping hand to guide our community through this process, not simply asking for their attendance at a court date.”
O’Shaughnessy noted that prosecutors can sometimes use other evidence to pursue a case if the victim won’t cooperate but that the DA’s office is “steadfast in our commitment to encourage victim and witness cooperation.”
Recently, she said, “we began to utilize [assistant district attorneys], crime victim advocates and therapists as part of a Violence Response Team dedicated to assisting victims of non-fatal shootings and felony assaults, as soon as possible after the crime.”
Dr. Kendra Doychak, of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said such an approach can help domestic violence victims feel empowered and to building trust in law enforcement.
“Maybe it alters the relationship they have with the criminal justice system,” said Doychak, director of the MA program in forensic psychology. “‘They did help me — maybe I’m a bit more willing to trust them in the future.’”
Doychak also said there are many reasons domestic violence victims decide not to cooperate. Victims often blame themselves or minimize the trauma, noting for instance, that the abuser “is still a good father.”
“She may want to abuse to stop,” Doychak said. “But she doesn’t want him to be prosecuted.”
According to NYPD data, 1,166 citywide arrests — both felonies and misdemeanors — in the first three months of the year were not prosecuted because victims of all kinds did not want to cooperate with investigators.
Of that total, according to the data, 1,116 of those arrests — a stunning 96% — were in the Bronx. It’s not clear why the disparities are so acute between the Bronx and other boroughs.
Of that total, O’Shaughnessy said, 965 arrests were for domestic violence, defined as involving family members and those in intimate relationships.
The overall decline prosecution issue in the Bronx is particularly acute in three of the borough’s 12 precincts, where 34% of all arrests were not prosecuted — 133 in 47th Precinct, which covers several neighborhoods, including Williamsbridge, Wakefield and Edenwald; 125 in the 44th Precinct had 125 such arrests and 124 in the 40th Precinct had 124, according to the data.
The NYPD data is included in its Declined Prosecution Analysis, which was ordered in 2020 by the court-appointed federal monitor tasked with overseeing various police reforms after a judge in 2013 ruled the stop and frisk tactics by nation’s largest police department violated the constitutional rights of minorities.
The quarterly reports, which include arrests by patrol officers but not by those assigned to housing projects or the subway system, provide a window into which cases are not prosecuted and why.
The NYPD, which did not comment on the data, uses the information to flag and review the tactics of officers who in the span of 12 months made at least three arrests that a DA’s office declined to prosecute.
Citywide in the first three months of the year, officers on patrol made 44,021 arrests, of which nearly 13% — 5,612 – were not prosecuted for any of about two dozen reasons, most notably the 2,519 listed in the “prosecutorial discretion” category.
Such decisions — which often come under fire — are made for different reasons. For instance, prosecutors dealing with first-time offenders accused of a minor crime, such as petty larceny, will offer the accused the chance to participate in a diversion program and complete a drug rehab program or see a mental health professional in the hopes or prevent recidivism.