The Shattering of Love

ABSTRACT Crisis intervention is one of the most difficult challenges for law enforcement personnel. Crisis situations demand a unique set of mediation skills appropriate to the nature of a social incident that is often punctuated by volatile emotions. Furthermore, the volatility and unpredictability of a crisis event is often more intense in a domestic setting where the disputants are involved in intra-family conflict issues. The purpose of this article is to present a review of the literature on the nature of social conflict in American society; to discuss a variety of conflict situations, i.e., typologies of crises; to suggest strategies and tactics for crisis management; and, finally, to offer methods to restore law and order, as well as to reduce the potentiality of human injury during crisis intervention.