Statistics on Partner Violence

Domestic Violence

1. Estimates range from 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend per year to four million women who are physically abused by their husband or boyfriend per year.
2. Every nine seconds in the United States a woman is assaulted and beaten.
3. Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.
4. 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.
5. Nearly 25 percent of American women report being raped and/or physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date at some time in their lifetime.
6. Thirty percent of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year.
7. In the year 2001, more than half a million American women (588,490 women) were victims of nonfatal violence committed by an intimate partner.
8. Intimate partner violence is primarily a crime against women. In 2001, women accounted for 85 percent of the victims of intimate partner violence (588,490 total) and men accounted for approximately 15 percent of the victims (103,220 total). Other statistics report up to 95 percent of victims of domestic violence are women.
9. 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.
10. In 2001, intimate partner violence made up 20 percent of violent crime against women. The same year, intimate partners committed three percent of all violent crime against men.
11. As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy.
12. Women of all races, age, or class are equally vulnerable to violence by an intimate partner.
13. Male violence against women does much more damage than female violence against men; women are much more likely to be injured than men..
14. 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..
15. Women are seven to 14 times more likely than men to report suffering severe physical assaults from an intimate partner.
16. Two thirds of all marriages will experience domestic violence at least once.
17. Fifty percent of homeless women and children in the U.S. are fleeing abusive homes.

Domestic Violence and Youth

1. Approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner.
2. Thirty percent of girls age 15 to 19 who are murdered are killed by their boyfriends or husbands.
3. Eight percent of high school age girls said "yes" when asked if "a boyfriend or date has ever forced sex against your will."
4. Forty percent of girls age 14 to 17 report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.
5. Eighty percent of girls who are physically abused continue to date their partner.
6. Eighty-seven percent of dating violence perpetrators are males, 16 to 17 years of age.

Date/Acquaintance Rape and Youth

1. The risk of rape is four times higher for women ages 16 to 24 than any other age group.
2. Thirty-eight percent of date rape victims are 14 to 17 years of age.
3. Seventy-eight percent of teenage date rape victims do not tell their parents about the attack. Seventy-one percent do tell a friend they were raped. Only six percent of victims will report the assault to the police.

Domestic Violence and Children

1. Seventy percent of men who batter their partners either sexually or physically abuse their children.
2. In homes where domestic violence occurs, children are abused at a rate 15 times higher than the national average.
3. Slightly more than half of female victims of intimate violence live in households with children under age 12.
4. Studies suggest that between 3.3 - 10 million children witness some form of domestic violence annually.
5. A male child who witnesses domestic violence is 10 times more likely to engage in domestic violence than a male child from a nonviolence home.

Elder Abuse

1. Every year in this country, nearly two million elderly people are abused, neglected, and exploited by family members or other caregivers.
2. Ninety percent of the violent crimes committed against individuals over the age of 65 are domestic violence crimes.
3. Reported elder abuse cases have increase 150 percent over the past 10 years.
4. Perpetrators of domestic elder abuse are adult children, 40 percent; followed by spouse, 15 percent; and grandchildren, 9 percent.

Domestic Violence and Homosexual Relationships

1. The prevalence of domestic violence among homosexual couples is approximately 25-33 percent.
2. Physical abuse among lesbians crosses age, race, class, lifestyle, and socio-economic lines, as in all intimate partner relationships.
3. Each year, between up to 100,000 lesbian women and as many as 500,000 gay men are battered.

Workplace Violence

1. Abusive partners harass 74 percent of employed battered women at work, either in person or over the telephone, causing 25 to 50 percent to lose their jobs.
2. Over 60,000 incidents of intimate partner violence occur at the victim's place of work every year.
3. Seventy-four percent of battered women are harassed at work, 54 percent miss more than three full days of work each month, 56 percent are late to work more than five times every month, and 28 percent leave work early five days each month.
4. Each year, victims miss and estimated 9.5 million days of work or other activity.
5. The annual cost of domestic violence to American companies is over $5 billion, which is manifested by low productivity, increased health care costs, absenteeism and turnover.
6. Domestic homicide is the leading cause of death for women in the workplace.

Health Issues

1. The health-related costs of rape, physical assault, stalking and homicide committed by intimate partners exceed $5.8 billion each year. Of that amount, nearly $4.1 billion are for direct medical and mental health care services, and nearly $1.8 billion are for the indirect costs of lost productivity or wages.
2. About half of all female victims of intimate violence report an injury of some type, and about 20 percent of them seek medical assistance.
3. Domestic violence is the number one cause of emergency room visits by women.
4. Seventy-three percent of the battered women seeking emergency medical services have already separated from the abuser.
5. Up to 64 percent of hospitalized female psychiatric patients have histories of being physically abused as adults.
6. Only about 10 percent of primary physicians routinely screen for domestic violence during new patient visits, and nine percent routinely screen during periodic checkups.

Domestic Homicides

1. On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. (In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner.)
2. Women are much more likely than men to be killed by an intimate partner. In 2000, intimate partner homicides accounted for 33.5 percent of the murders of women and less than four percent of the murders of men.
3. Women are most likely to be killed when attempting to leave the abuser. In fact, they're at a 75 percent higher risk than those who stay.
4. Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause, and evidence exists that a significant proportion of all female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners.
5. Over 90 percent of murder-suicides involving couples are perpetrated by the man; 19 to 26 percent of male spouse-murderers committed suicide.
6. Research suggests that injury related deaths, including homicide and suicide, account for approximately one-third of all maternal mortality cases, while medical reasons make up the rest. But, homicide is the leading cause of death overall for pregnant women.

Rape

1. 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.
2. One in five (21 percent) women reported she had been raped or physically or sexually assaulted in her lifetime.
3. 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.
4. In 2000, 48 percent of the rapes/sexual assaults committed against people age 12 and over were reported to the police.
5. In 2001, 41,740 women were victims of rape/sexual assault committed by an intimate partner.
6. Rapes/sexual assaults committed by strangers are more likely to be reported to the police than rapes/sexual assaults committed by "nonstrangers," including intimate partners, other relatives and friends or acquaintances. Between 1992 and 2000, 41 percent of the rapes/sexual assaults committed by strangers were reported to the police. During the same time period, 24 percent of the rapes/sexual assaults committed by an intimate were reported.

Stalking

1. Annually in the United States, 503,485 women are stalked by an intimate partner.
2. 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.
3. 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.

Law and crime

1. Prison terms for killing husbands are twice as long as for killing wives.
2. Ninety-three percent of women who killed their partners had been battered by them. Sixty-seven percent killed them to protect themselves and their children at the moment of murder.
3. Twenty-five percent of all crime is wife assault.
4. More than 50 percent of child abductions result from domestic violence.
5. Injuries that battered women receive are as serious as injuries suffered in 90 percent of violence felony crimes.
6. While same-sex partner violence mirrors heterosexual partner violence both type and prevalence, same-sex victims receive fewer protections.