PREVALENCE
Domestic violence crosses ethnic, racial, age, national origin, sexual orientation, religious and socioeconomic lines.

By the most conservative estimate, each year 1 million women suffer nonfatal violence by an intimate.

By other estimates, 4 million American women experience a serious assault by an intimate partner during an average 12-month period.

Nearly 1 in 3 adult women experience at least one physical assault by a partner during adulthood.

28% of all annual violence against women is perpetrated by intimates.

5% of all annual violence against men is perpetrated by intimates.

During 1994, 21% of all violent victimizations against women were committed by an intimate, but only 4% of violent victimizations against men were committed by an intimate.

In 1993, approximately 575,000 men were arrested for committing violence against women. Approximately 49,000 women were arrested for committing violence against men.

RACE
Race is not indicative of who is at risk of domestic violence.

Domestic violence is statistically consistent across racial and ethnic boundaries.

AGE
Batterers and victims may experience domestic violence at any age.

Women ages 19-29 reported more violence by intimates than any other age group.

Women aged 46 or older are least likely to be battered by an intimate.

In a 1990 restraining order study, the age of abusers ranged from 17 - 70. Two-thirds of the abusers were between the ages 24 and 40.

GENDER
an overwhelming majority of domestic violence victims in heterosexual relationships are women.

90 - 95% of domestic violence victims are women.

As many as 95% of domestic violence perpetrators are male.

Much of female violence is committed in self-defense, and inflicts less injury than male violence.

During 1992-1993, women were 6 times more likely to experience violence by an intimate partner than men.

The chance of being victimized by an intimate is 10 times greater for a woman than a man.
70% of intimate homicide victims are female.
Bureau of Justice Statistics Selected Findings: Violence Between Intimates (NCJ-149259), November 1994.

Male perpetrators are 4 times more likely to use lethal violence than females.

SAME-SEX BATTERING
Domestic violence occurs within same-sex relationships with the same statistical frequency as in heterosexual relationships.

The prevalence of domestic violence among Gay and Lesbian couples is approximately 25 - 33%. Each year, between 50,000 and 100,000 Lesbian women and as many as 500,000 Gay men are battered.
Battering mirrors heterosexual battering both in type and prevalence, its victims receive fewer protections. Seven states define domestic violence in a way that excludes same-sex victims; 21 states have sodomy laws that may require same-sex victims to confess to a crime in order to prove they are in a domestic relationship. Many battered Gays or Lesbians fight back to defend themselves - it is a myth that same-sex battering is mutual.
By 1994, there were over 1,500 shelters and safe houses for battered women. Many of these shelters routinely deny their services to victims of same-sex battering.

Same-sex batterers use forms of abuse similar to those of heterosexual batterers. They have an additional weapon in the threat of "outing" their partner to family, friends, employers or community.

RECIDIVISM
Battering tends to be a pattern of violence rather than a one-time occurrence.

During the six months following an episode of domestic violence, 32% of battered women are victimized again. Bureau of Justice Statistics: Preventing Domestic Violence against Women, 1986.

47% of men who beat their wives do so at least 3 times per year.

Short term (6-12 week) psycho-educational batterer-intervention programs helped some batterers stop immediate physical violence but were inadequate in stopping abuse over time. Some batterers became more sophisticated in their psychological abuse and intimidation after attending such programs.

Six months after obtaining a protection order: 8% of victims reported post-order physical abuse; 26% reported respondent came to or called their home or workplace; 65% reported no further problems.

CHILDREN
Domestic violence has immediate and long term detrimental effects on children.

Each year, an estimated 3.3 million children are exposed to violence by family members against their mothers or female caretakers.

In homes where partner abuse occurs, children are 1,500 times more likely to be abused.

40-60% of men who abuse women also abuse children.

Fathers who batter mothers are 2 times more likely to seek sole physical custody of their children than are non-violent fathers.

In one study, 27% of domestic homicide victims were children.

When children are killed during a domestic dispute, 90% are under age 10; 56% are under age 2.

DATING VIOLENCE
Violence against intimates may occur even though the victim does not live with her abuser.

Violence against women occurs in 20% of dating couples.

An average of 28% of high school and college students experience dating violence at some point.

26% of pregnant teens reported being physically abused by their boyfriends. About half of them said the battering began or intensified after he learned of her pregnancy.

Victims of dating violence report the abuse takes many forms: insults, humiliation, monitoring the victim's movements, isolation of the victim from family and friends, suicide threats, threats to harm family or property, and physical or sexual abuse. Their abusers also blamed them for the abuse, or used jealousy as an excuse.

25 - 33% of adolescent abusers reported that their violence served to "intimidate," frighten," or "force the other person to give me something."

SELF-DEFENSE
Many battered women attempt to physically defend themselves from abuse.

Marital homicide differs significantly by gender: a large proportion of the killings by women are acts of self-defense, while almost none of the killings by men are acts of self-defense.

Defensive action by battered women to protect themselves or their children is often interpreted by law enforcement as an act of domestic violence. The number of battered women arrested for committing acts of violence against their partners has disproportionately increased in communities that overuse "dual arrest."

PHYSICAL INJURY AND MEDICAL TREATMENT
Victims of domestic violence often require medical care, although they may conceal the cause of their injuries.

Female victims of violence are 2.5 times more likely to be injured when the violence is committed by an intimate than when committed by a stranger.

Because domestic abuse is an ongoing cycle producing increasingly severe injuries over time, battered women are likely to see physicians frequently.

The rate of domestic violence detection by emergency room doctors is low.

Although battered women comprise 20 - 30% of ambulatory care patients, only 1 in 20 is correctly identified as such by medical practitioners.

One study found that less than 3% of women visiting emergency rooms disclosed or were asked about domestic violence by a nurse or physician.

The use of emergency room protocols for identifying and treating victims of domestic violence has been found to increase the identification of victims by medical practitioners from 5.6% to 30%.

17% of those who visit emergency rooms for treatment are documented as having come as a result of being injured by an intimate.

37% of women injured by violence and treated in an emergency room were injured by an intimate; less than 5% of men injured by violence and treated in an emergency room were injured by an intimate.

243,000 people receiving emergency room treatment for violence-related injuries in 1994 had been injured by an intimate. Female victims outnumbered males 9 to 1.

"Acute domestic violence" was the reason for 1 out of 9 patients emergency room visit among women with a current partner.

One study of women visiting emergency rooms for treatment found that 54% had been threatened or injured by an intimate partner at some time in their lives, and 24% reported having been injured by their current partner in the past.

LAW ENFORCEMENT
Intervention of the police and the court system can be improved in domestic violence cases.

Every state allows its police to arrest perpetrators of misdemeanor domestic violence incidents upon probable cause and more than half of the states and the District of Columbia have laws requiring police to arrest on probable cause for at least some domestic violence crimes.

Only about one-seventh of all domestic assaults come to the attention of the police.

Female victims of domestic violence are 6 times less likely to report crime to law enforcement as female victims of stranger violence.

When an injury was inflicted upon a woman by her intimate partner, she reported the violence to the police only 55% of the time. She was even less likely to report violence when she did not sustain injury.

Some studies indicate that arresting a batterer increases recidivism, while some studies indicate that arrest serves as a deterrent for future domestic violence.

Arresting a batterer may reduce violence in the short term, but may increase violence in the long term.
The varying effect of arrest on abusers may be related to the amount the batterer has to lose from facing the social consequences of arrest. The single most consistent result of studies of the effect of arrest on batterers is that unemployed suspects become more violent after an arrest, and employed suspects do not.

Even if arrest may not deter unemployed abusers, arrest still deters the vast majority of abusers.

Possession of a gun by anyone subject to a protection order is prohibited by federal law.

Purchase or ownership of a gun by anyone convicted of a misdemeanor domestic violence offense is prohibited by federal law.

Protection Orders

Protection orders decrease, but do not eliminate the risk of continuing abuse or homicide.

A protection order issued by one U.S. state or Indian tribe is valid and enforceable in any other U.S. state or Indian tribe.

In cases of marital or dating violence, which accounted for 82% of all protection order cases, 90% of defendants were male.

35% of women with temporary protection orders did not return
for a protection order because respondent stopped battering her; 17% because service of process was not achieved.

More than 17% of domestic homicide victims had a protection order against the perpetrator at the time of the killing.

Although the majority of batterers do not have criminal records, the majority of batterers brought to court by their victims for a protection order had criminal records.

Protection order defendants who had prior criminal histories were more likely to violate the order than those who did not.

In one study, nearly half of the victims who obtained a protection order were re-abused within two years.

The majority of women who seek temporary protection orders have complaints of serious abuse: physical assaults, threats to kill or harm her, or attempts or threats to take the children.

In one study of women seeking temporary protection orders, 56% has sustained physical injuries.

60% of women in one study reported acts of abuse after the entry of a protection order, and 30% reported acts of severe violence.

Entry of a protection order did not appear to deter most types of abuse, but it did significantly reduce the likelihood of acts of psychological abuse such as preventing the victim from leaving her home, going to work, using a car or telephone, and stalking and harassing behaviors.

One study showed 80% of women with temporary protection order said the order was somewhat or very helpful in sending the batterer a message that his actions were wrong. Less than 50% of the women thought that the batterer believed he had to obey the order.

Most violations of protection orders leading to an arrest occurred within 90 days of the entry of the order.

60% of those obtaining protection orders in one study reported violations within one year.

Calls to police due to violations of protection orders were high, but the arrests were rare.

17% of protection orders defendants in a 1995 study were arraigned for a violation of the order within one year.

6% of protection order defendants were convicted of violating the order.


STALKING
Batterers may attempt to frighten or control their victims through stalking.


Some advocates believe up to 80% of stalking cases occur within intimate relationships.

If stalking occurs within an intimate relationship, it typically begins after the woman attempts to leave the relationship.


SEPARATION VIOLENCE
when a woman leaves her batterer, her risk of serious violence or death increases dramatically.

Separated/divorced women are 14 times more likely than married women to report having been a victim of violence by their spouse or ex-spouse.

Women separated from their husbands were 3 times more likely to be victimized by spouses than divorced women, and 25 times more likely to be victimized by spouses than married women.

65% of intimate homicide victims physically separated from the perpetrator prior to their death.


HOMICIDE
Domestic homicide is often the culmination of an escalating history of abuse.

Female homicide victims are more than twice as likely to have been killed by an intimate partner as are male homicide victims.

88% of victims’ domestic violence fatalities had a documented history of physical abuse.

44% of victims of intimate homicides had prior threats by the killer to kill victim or self. 30% had prior police calls to the residence. 17% had a protection order.

For homicides in which the victim-killer relationship was known, 31% of female victims were killed by an intimate. 4% of male victims were killed by an intimate.

70% of intimate-partner homicide victims are women.

A woman is the perpetrator in 19% of domestic homicides.

When a woman is the perpetrator of a domestic homicide, typically the abuser was killed during an assault incident in which the woman was the victim.

In a 1967 study, 60% of husbands who were killed by their wives precipitated their own deaths by being the first to use physical force or threaten with a weapon.

Homicides committed by victims during a battering incident were often committed with the abuser's own weapon.

The wives who had killed their husbands had previously been beaten by their husbands.

Of women killed in 1992, their relationship to the killer was known in 69% of homicides. Of this percent, 28% were killed by spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend or ex-boyfriend.
Bureau of Justice Statistics: National Crime Victimization Survey, 1995.

Of men killed in 1992, their relationship to the killer was known in 59% of homicides. Of this percent, 3% were killed by spouse, ex-spouse, girlfriend or ex-girlfriend.

MULTIPLE-VICTIM HOMICIDE
In some domestic homicides, the perpetrator kills more than one person.

In 1994, 38% of domestic homicides were multiple-victim, usually combining a spouse homicide and suicide, or child homicide.
Where there are multiple victims in a domestic homicide, 89% of perpetrators are male.