Domestic Violence

US and International Frequency of Domestic Violence

• Every 12 to 15 seconds a woman is battered in the United States.
• 95% of all domestic violence is committed by males against their female partners. (NCADV)
• Domestic violence is the largest single cause of injury to women in the U.S.- more than injuries from auto accidents, muggings and rapes combined. (Surgeon General of the U.S.)
• Estimates range from 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend per year (U.S. Department of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March 1998) to three million women who are physically abused by their husband or boyfriend per year. (The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman's Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women's Health, May 1999)
• Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.( Heise, L., Ellsberg, M. and Gottemoeller, M. Ending Violence Against Women. Population Reports, Series L, No. 11., December 1999)
• Nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives, according to a 1998 Commonwealth Fund survey. (The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman's Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women's Health, May 1999)
• Intimate partner violence is primarily a crime against women. In 1999, women accounted for 85 percent of the victims of intimate partner violence (671,110 total) and men accounted for 15 percent of the victims (120,100 total). (Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, Intimate Partner Violence and Age of Victim, 1993-99, October 2001)
• While women are less likely than men to be victims of violent crimes overall, women are five to eight times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner. (U.S. Department of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March 1998) From 1993 to 1998, victimization by an intimate accounted for 22 percent of the violence experienced by females. It accounted for three percent of the violent crime sustained by males. (U.S. Department of Justice, Intimate Partner Violence, May 2000.)
• Women are seven to 14 times more likely than men to report suffering severe physical assaults from an intimate partner. (National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November 1998.)

• On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. In 1999, 1,642 murders were attributed to intimates; 74 percent of the murder victims. (Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, Intimate Partner Violence and Age of Victim, 1993-99, October 2001)
• Male murder victims are substantially less likely than female murder victims to be killed by an intimate partner. In 1999, intimate partner homicides accounted for 32 percent of the murders of women and approximately four percent of the murders of men. (Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, Intimate Partner Violence and Age of Victim, 1993-99, October 2001)

• In a national survey of more than 2,000 American families, 50 percent of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children. (Murray A. Straus and Richard J. Gelles, Physical Violence in American Families, 1990)
• Slightly more than half of female victims of intimate violence live in households with children under age 12. (U.S. Department of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March 1998)
• One in five female high school students reports being physically or sexually abused by a dating partner.  (Massachusetts Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS), August 2001)
• Approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner. (Jay G. Silverman, PhD; Anita Raj, PhD; Lorelei A. Mucci, MPH; and Jeanne E. Hathaway, MD, MPH, "Dating Violence Against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Use, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy, and Suicidality," Journal of American Medical Association, Vol. 286, No. 5, 2001).
• Eight percent of high school age girls said "yes" when asked if "a boyfriend or date has ever forced sex against your will. (The Commonwealth Fund Survey of the Health of Adolescent Girls, November 1997)

• Forty percent of girls age 14 to 17 report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend. (Children Now/Kaiser Permanente poll, December 1995)

Rape and Sexual Assault

• Annually, an estimated 4.5 million physical assaults and over 300,00 sexual assaults are committed against U.S. women by intimate partners. (Extent, Nature, & Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, 2000)
• Three in four women (76 percent )who reported they had been raped and/or physically assaulted since age 18 said that a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, or date committed the assault. (U.S. Department of Justice, Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November 1998)
• One in five (21 percent) women reported she had been raped or physically or sexually assaulted in her lifetime. (The Commonwealth Fund, Health Concerns Across a Woman's Lifespan: 1998 Survey of Women's Health, May 1999)

• Nearly one-fifth of women (18 percent) reported experiencing a completed or attempted rape at some time in their lives; one in 33 men (three percent) reported experiencing a completed or attempted rape at some time in their lives. (National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, November 1998)

Stalking

• Seventy-eight percent of stalking victims are women. Women are significantly more likely than men (60 percent and 30 percent, respectively) to be stalked by intimate partners. (Center for Policy Research, Stalking in America, July 1997)
• Eighty percent of women who are stalked by former husbands are physically assaulted by that partner and 30 percent are sexually assaulted by that partner. (Center for Policy Research, Stalking in America, July 1997)
• It is estimated that 503,485 women are stalked by an intimate partner each year in the United States.  (National Institute of Justice, July 2000)