Domestic Violence

Each year, 1,500,000 women and 835,000 men in the United States are raped or physically assaulted by an intimate partner. (National Institute of Justice. 2000. Extent, Nature and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.)

Because the number of victimizations far exceeds the number of victims, it is estimated that in the United States, there are 4.8 million intimate partner rapes and physical assaults against women annually and 2.9 million intimate partner physical assaults against men annually. (Ibid.)

Among women who report having been raped, physically assaulted, or stalked since they were 18 years old, 60 percent were victimized by a husband, co-habiting partner, a boyfriend, or a date. (Ibid.)

More than 500,000 women have injuries requiring medical treatment each year that were inflicted upon them by intimate partners. (Ibid.)

The direct costs of medical treatment for battered women annually are estimated at 1.8 billion. (Wisner, C., Gilmer,T., Saltman, L., Zink,T. “Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: Do Victims Cost Health Plans More?” Journal of Family Practice, 1999: 48(6).)

Each year, over 324,000 pregnant women are victims of intimate partner violence in the United States. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 2002. Safe Motherhood: Promoting Health for Women Before, During and After Pregnancy, 2002. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.)

Thirty-two percent of all the females between the ages of 20 and 24 murdered between 1993 and 1999 were victims of an intimate partner. (Ibid.)

In recent years, intimate partners have been responsible for 33 percent of all the female homicides recorded annually. (Bureau of Justice Statistics. February 2003. Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.)

Children under the age of 12 resided in 43 percent of the households in which domestic violence was reported between 1993 and 1998. (Ibid.)

The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs’ (NCAVP) data collection for same sex domestic violence in 2002 reported 5,092 incidents. Forty-two percent of the reported incidents involved females, 51 percent involved males, and the remainder were of unspecified gender. (Baum, R. and Moore, K. 2002. Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Domestic Violence in 2002. New York, NY. National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs.)

According to the NCAVP study, gay and bi-sexual men experienced abuse in intimate partner relationships at 2/5 rate, one comparable to rates of domestic violence experienced by heterosexual women. (Ibid.)

In 2002, 20 percent of female crime victims and 3 percent of male crime victims were victimized by intimates. (Bureau of Justice Statistics. August 2003. Criminal Victimization, 2002. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.)