Prevalence of Domestic Violence

• One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. ⁱ
• An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year. ⁱⁱ
• The majority (73%) of family violence victims are female. Females were 84% of spousal abuse victims and 86% of abuse victims at the hands of a boyfriend. ⁴
• 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).⁴⁴
• Boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults. ⁱⁱⁱ 
• The cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion each year, $4.1 billion of which is for direct medical and health services. ^iv

2006 Domestic Violence in California and Los Angles County

• In 2006, 134 homicides were the result of domestic violence. ^v
• 110 women were killed by their husbands, ex-husbands, or boyfriends, and 24 men were killed by their wives, ex-wives, or girlfriends. ^vi
• California law enforcement received 176,299 domestic violence call in 2006; 80,946 calls involved weapons. ^vii
• Every year almost 6% of California’s women suffer physical injuries from domestic violence. ^viii
• Over 43, 911 arrests for spousal abuse occurred in 2006. 80% were men and 20% were women. ^ix
• The prevalence of domestic violence by ethnicity: ^x
  • Caucasian 5.0%
  • African American 8.5%
  • Hispanic 7.9%
  • Asian 4.8%
• Among women under 65 in CA, those with disabilities were more than twice as likely to have experienced sexual abuse over a 12 month period as their non-disabled counterparts. ^xi
• In California, one forcible rape occurs every 56 minutes.

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender (LGBT) Domestic Violence

• Gay and bisexual men experience abuse in intimate partner relationship at a rate of 2 in 5 ^xiii
• Approximately 50% of the lesbian population has experienced or will experience domestic violence in their lifetimes ^xiv
• In 2000, 2,837 incidents of LGBT intimate partner violence were documented in a report to the Department of Health Services, Maternal, Child, and Adolescent Health ^xv

Women with Disabilities and Domestic Violence

• Disabled women have a rate of 85% of them as victims of domestic violence. ^xvi
• Disabled women are raped, assaulted and abused at rates more than 2 times greater than women without disabilities. ^xvii

Children and Domestic Violence 

• 3.3 to 10 million children who witness the abuse of a parent or adult caregiver each year. ^xviii
• The U.S. Advisory Board on Child Abuse suggests that domestic violence may be the single major recursor to child abuse and neglect fatalities in this country. ^xix
• In a national survey of more than 6,000 American families, 50 percent of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children. ^xx
• Men who as children were exposed to their parents' domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own wives than sons of nonviolent parents. ^xxi
• Children who are exposed to domestic violence are more likely to exhibit behavioral and physical health problems including depression, anxiety, and violence towards peers. ^xxii
• They are also more likely to attempt suicide, abuse drugs and alcohol, run away from home, engage in teenage prostitution, and commit sexual assault crimes. ^xxiii

Teen Dating Violence

• 72% of 8th and 9th graders reportedly “date”. ^xxiv
• 23% or teens that had been physically or sexually assaulted by a dating partner reported the abuse to no one. ^xxv
• Of 9th graders who stated they had a boyfriend or girlfriend, 5% said their partner has physically hurt them on purpose. ^xxvi
• Approximately 7% of 11th grade students in California report being victims of teen dating violence. ^xxvii
• Abused teens are four to six times more likely to become pregnant than non-abused teens. ^xxviii
• 1 in 4 adolescents reports verbal, physical, emotional, or sexual abuse each year. ^xxix
• 1 in 11 high school students reports being physically hurt by someone they were dating. ^xxx

Pregnancy and Domestic Violence

• In a recent study, researchers found that the mortality risk during both the perinatal and neonatal periods more than doubled for offspring of mothers who experience domestic violence. ^xxxi
• Each year about 324,000 pregnant women in the U.S. are battered by the men in their lives. ^xxxii
• Complications of pregnancy, including low weight gain, anemia, infections, and first and second trimester bleeding are significantly higher for abused women as are maternal rates of depression, suicide attempts, tobacco, alcohol, and illicit drug use. ^xxxiii

Homicide and Domestic Violence 

• Nearly 1/3 of all women murdered in the U.S. in recent years were killed by a current or former intimate partner. In, 2000, 1,247 women, more than 3 a day, were killed by their intimate partners. ^xxxiv
• In 2005, For homicides in which the victim to offender relationship can be identified, 92 percent of female victims were murdered by someone they knew ^xxxv
• 1,858 females were murdered by males in the U.S. in 2005. ^xxxvi
• The homicide rate among females murdered by males in the U.S. was 1.32 over 100,000 in 2005. ^xxvii 
• The average age for female homicide victims in 2005 was 38. ^xxxviii

Domestic Violence and Guns

• In 2005, 52% of female victims were shot and killed with guns. ^xxxix
• From 1998 to 2001, more than 2,800 people with misdemeanor domestic violence convictions were able to purchase guns with out being identified by the National Criminal Background Check System. ^xl

Domestic Violence in the Workplace

• Homicide was the second leading cause of death on the job for women in 2000. ^xli
• More than 29,000 acts of rape or sexual assault are perpetuated against women at work each year. ^xlii
• The annual cost of lost productivity due to domestic violence is estimated at $727.8 million, with over 7.9 million paid workdays lost each year. ^xliii

Domestic Violence and Stalking

• Annually in the United States, 503,485 women are stalked by an intimate partner.⁴⁴
• 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.⁴⁵
• 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.⁴⁶

Domestic Violence and 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.⁴⁸
• In 2001, 41,740 women were victims of rape/sexual assault committed by an intimate partner.⁴⁹
• 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.⁵⁰