Evidence of Domestic Violence: Statistics

Prevalence of Domestic Violence

• 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. (Health Concerns Across A Woman’s Lifespan: The Commonwealth Fund 1998 Survey of Women’s Health, The Commonwealth Fund, May 1999) (Source FVPF1)

• One out of every five U.S. women has been physically assaulted by an intimate partner.  One out of every 14 U.S. men has been physically assaulted by an intimate partner. (Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey, U.S. Department of Justice, November 2000)

• Thirty percent of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year. (Domestic Violence Advertising Campaign Tracking Survey Wave IV Conducted for The Advertising Council and the Family Violence Prevention Fund, Lieberman Research Inc., July – October 1996) (Source FVPF1)

• 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. (Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, U.S. Department of Justice, March 1998)

• Sixty-four percent of women who are raped, physically assaulted, and/or stalked are raped, assaulted, and/or stalked by an intimate partner as compared to only 16.2 percent of men that are raped, physically assaulted, or stalked. (Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey, U.S. Department of Justice, November 2000)

• Women of all races and Hispanic and non-Hispanic women are about equally vulnerable to violence by an intimate. (Violence Against Women: Estimates from the Redesigned Survey, Bureau of Justice Statistics, August 1995) (Source FVPF1)

• The most rapid growth in domestic relations caseloads is occurring in domestic violence filings. Between 1993 and 1995, 18 of 32 states with three-year filing figures reported an increase of 20 percent or more. (Examining the Work of State Courts, 1995: A National Perspective from the Court Statistics Project, National Center for the States Courts, 1996) (Source FVPF1)
 

Domestic Injuries and Homicides

• 41.5 percent of adult women and 19.9 percent of adult men who were physically assaulted by intimates were injured during their most recent victimization. (Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey, U.S. Department of Justice, November 2000)

• The risk of injury increases among female rape and physical assault victims when their assailant is a current or former intimate. (Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey, U.S. Department of Justice, November 2000)

• Women are 7 to 14 times more likely than men to report suffering severe physical assaults from an intimate partner. (Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 1998) (Source FVPF1)

• About half of all female victims of domestic violence report an injury of some type, and about 20 percent of them seek medical assistance. (National Crime Victimization Survey, 1992-96; Study of Injured Victims of Violence, 1994) (Source FVPF1)

• Thirty-seven percent of women who sought treatment in emergency rooms for violence-related injuries in 1994 were injured by a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend. (Violent-Related Injuries Treated in Hospital Emergency Departments, U.S. Department of Justice, August 1997) (Source FVPF1)

• In 1996, approximately 1,800 murders were attributed to intimate partners; nearly three out of four of these had a female victim. (Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, U.S. Department of Justice, March 1998) (Source FVPF1)

• The number of domestic violence related suicides remains yet to be fully documented. In  Denver, Colorado, between 1993 and 1998, 3 out of 10 domestic violence homicides and attempted homicides involved a suicide or an attempted suicide. (When Domestic Violence Kills The Formation and Findings of the Denver Metro Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee, Margaret L. Abrams, M.A., Joanne Belknap, Ph.D., Heather C. Milton, Project Safeguard, March 2001) (Source PS)

• Among all female murder victims in 1995, 26 percent were known to have been slain by husbands or boyfriends. Three percent of the male victims were known to have been slain by wives or girlfriends. (Crime in the United States 1995: Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation) (Source FVPF1)

• From 1996-1999, intimate partner homicide accounted for 14 percent to 20 percent of the total homicide rate. During that same time period, 45 percent of female homicide victims in Colorado were killed by an intimate partner. (When Domestic Violence Kills The Formation and Findings of the Denver Metro Domestic Violence Fatality Review Committee, Margaret L. Abrams, M.A., Joanne Belknap, Ph.D., Heather C. Milton, Project Safeguard, March 2001) (Source PS)
 

Domestic Violence and Youth/Children

• 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) (Source FVPF1)

• Forty percent of teenage girls age 14 to 17 reported knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.  (Children Now/Kaiser Permanente Poll, December 1995) (Source FVPF1)

• During the 1996-1997 school year, there were an estimated 4,000 incidents of rape or other types of sexual assault in public schools across the country. (Violence and Discipline Problems in U.S. Public Schools: 1996-1997, U.S. Department of Education) (Source FVPF1)

• In a national survey of more than 2,000 American families, approximately 50 percent of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children. (Physical Violence in American Families, Murray A Straus and Richard J. Gelles, 1990) (Source FVPF1)

• Slightly more than half of female victims of intimate violence live in households with children under age 12. (Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, U.S. Department of Justice, March 1998) (Source FVPF1)
 

Rape

• 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. 201,394 women over the age of 18 are raped by an intimate partner annually in the United States. (Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings From the National Violence Against Women Survey, U.S. Department of Justice, November 2000)

• Nearly one-fifth of women (18 percent) reported experiencing a completed or attempted rape at some time in their lives; one in 33 men (3 percent) reported experiencing a completed or attempted rape at some time in their lives. (Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, National Institute of Justice and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 1998) (Source FVPF1)
 

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. (Stalking in America, Center for Policy Research, July 1997) (Source FVPF1)

• Eighty percent of women who are stalked by a former husband are physically assaulted by that partner; 30 percent are sexually assaulted by that partner. (Stalking in America, Center for Policy Research, July 1997) (Source FVPF1)