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Domestic violence arrests have been rising in Winchester over the past three years.
The number of residents charged with domestic violence crimes – including assault and battery, attempted strangulation and suffocation, interfering with police and trying to intimidate or harass witnesses in court proceedings and violating a restraining order – rose from four in 2023 to seven in 2024 to 14 last year.
Total domestic violence related arrests more than doubled in a recent two-year period, making up nearly half of all the town’s 2025 arrests – with another two individuals charged since January of this year, department arrest logs show.
Initially, when asked about arrest trends in March, Lt. Edward Donahue put the department’s domestic violence arrests at “maybe three, four or five.”
But an analysis of the arrest logs shows that between Jan. 1, 2023, and the end of March of this year, at least 55 of the 116 arrests were of Winchester residents and 27 of those were charged with multiple instances of domestic violence.
In an interview, Donahue said he was “shocked” when he reviewed the arrest data and that “14 arrests, for me, that is a lot for our department.”
He said he could not explain the rise in domestic violence arrests, but alcohol and mental health issues factored in several of the 2025 arrests.
“There really is no huge reason for it,” Donahue said. “Yes, we do have more housing coming in, but that just kind of started.
“It opened my eyes that you found that,” Donahue added. “I should definitely start looking at this more often.”
Donahue said Winchester Police do not see repeat offenders in family disputes that could lead to domestic violence charges. Police use discretion before charging someone with domestic violence crimes to determine whether contacting social services would be more appropriate.
“We are extremely lucky that no one is being seriously injured,” Donahue said. “Once or twice a year, we deal with a very serious domestic where there’s suffocation involved or things like that. It’s a push, it’s a shove sometimes. You become complacent to it a little bit. It’s better that we have eyes on it now.”
There are no statewide statistics on domestic violence arrests. While a 2018 state law requires all 470 Massachusetts law enforcement agencies to report monthly arrests to state officials, none are labeled as domestic violence, and police reports on those incidents are not publicly available.
But FBI data shows 25,374 incidents of domestic violence were reported to police in 2020 in Massachusetts, including murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, assaults and intimidation. By 2024, those numbers rose to 26,297, according to a state report.
Nithya Badrinath, policy director at Jane Doe Inc., a statewide coalition that advocates for victims of domestic violence and sexual abuse, said victims may be more willing to contact law enforcement to report abusers than previously, though fear of police remains a challenge.
“One thing that is clear is that domestic violence is an issue, a significant issue across communities,” she said. “Whether affluent communities or more low-income communities, it’s happening in every community.”
Badrinath said law enforcement is just part of the solution.
“We know that domestic violence thrives in isolation and that it requires a community response,” she said.
Overall, total arrests made by the Winchester Police have shifted since 2023, decreasing in some categories like driving under the influence, drug violations and disorderly conduct.
About one in five arrests are alcohol-related, and Donahue said those spike in the summer months and around the holidays.
Most of those arrested are people from other communities, from Boston and Gloucester to New Hampshire and New York.
Winchester residents have also been arrested for possession of child pornography, cocaine trafficking, assault and battery on police, trespassing and other charges.
In recent years, Winchester Police have responded to an increased number of mental health calls that do not generally result in arrests, especially now that the department has hired a mental health counselor to help officers deal with people in crisis, Donahue said.
“If somebody has a bipolar issue, depression, drinking, things like that, we can actually connect them a lot better with services,” he said.
Winchester Police officers are also better trained to distinguish between a crime and a crisis, something he thinks is necessary training in today’s police academies.
“Officers are better prepared to say ‘OK, is this person actually committing a crime or is it their state of mind?’” Donahue said.
Property crimes are not a major concern for police, Donahue said.
“With the affluence of the community, you don’t have a lot of property crime,” he said. “You don’t have a narcotics trade, for example. A lot of those arrests that you would see in a bigger city, it doesn’t happen here.”
Winchester’s geography and lack of big retail stores also insulate it from the types of property offenses neighboring police departments deal with.
“Winchester has a unique thing. It’s not that well-traveled. It’s not a cut-through,” Donahue said, adding the two biggest retail stores are a CVS pharmacy and a Stop & Shop. “That helps keep crime down.
“The biggest thefts at CVS are kids with candy after school,” Donahue said, which does not result in arrests. “OK, it’s an 11-year-old. We’re going to talk to Mom and Dad.”
Oliver Hettenbach is a journalism student at Boston University. Boston University Professor Maggie Mulvihill contributed to this story, which was produced in her spring 2026 Data Journalism course as part of a partnership between the Winchester News and the BU Department of Journalism’s Newsroom program.
