Intimate Partner Violence Facts

Every 9 seconds a woman is battered in the U.S. by her husband, boyfriend or live-in partner (FBI Uniform crime reports).
More than 6 million women each year are battered by a male partner. Of these, 2 million are severely assaulted. (National Victim Center, 1995) The FBI records about 1800 murders of women by husbands or Boy friends and 500,000 rapes a year in 1992 and 1993. More than 75% of these violent acts were committed by someone known to the victim, and 29 % were reported to be by intimate partners. The FBI estimates that for every reported case, ten go unreported.
Domestic Violence costs more than $67 billion per year in property damage and loss, medical costs, resulting mental health care, police and fire services, victim services and lost worker productivity. (Miller et al, National Institutes of Justice, 1996)
Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 to 44, more common than auto accidents, muggings and rapes combined (Surgeon General of the United States, 1992). 50% of all homeless women and children are fleeing domestic violence (U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, 1991).
90% of all reported domestic assaults are committed by men against women. The remaining 10% consists of battering among same-sex partners or of women battering men. (Bureau of Justice statistics, 1994).
75% of domestic homicides occur when the victim is leaving the perpetrator. (National Clearinghouse for The Defense of Battered Women). 52% of women murdered each year are killed by a current or former partner (FBI reports).
Domestic violence covers all demographic and socioeconomic boundaries and is a societal problem costly to every citizen. Women of all cultures, races, occupations, income levels and ages are battered by husbands, boy friends, lovers and partners (Boston: Massachusetts Coalition of Battered Women Service Groups, 1990).
Battered women account for up to 35% of visits to hospital emergency rooms, 25% of female suicides, 25% of women seeking emergency psychiatric help and 58% of women over 30 years old who have been raped. (American Medical Association).
One in three women will be battered by a partner during her lifetime, yet only 8% of these women will tell a doctor (American Medical Association).
Up to 37% of all pregnant women are battered. One in four pregnant women have a history of partner violence. Battered women miscarry twice as often as non-battered women. (American Medical Association, March of Dimes, 1996.)
Every year, domestic violence causes approximately 300,000 hospitalizations, 28,700 emergency room visits and 39,900 physician visits. Cost to the nation totals more than $10 billion per year. (National Victim Center, 1995)
A major study of children at battered women's shelters found that 70% were victims of physical abuse or neglect; 30% were victims of sexual assault. Over 60% of children of battered women are themselves abused (Guide for Health Professionals, New Jersey Women's Division).
63 % of the young men between the ages of 11 and 20 who are serving time for homicide have killed their mother's abuser (FBI Uniform Crime Reports, 1993). Being abused or neglected as a child increases the likelihood of arrest as a juvenile by 60%, as an adult by 40% and for violent crime by 40% (National Institutes of Justice, October, 1992).
Tennessee passed a law in 1997, which makes it, is a rebuttable presumption that it is not in the best interest of the child for custody to be awarded to perpetrators of abuse. This law is still ignored in many Tennessee courtrooms.
52% of women murdered each year are killed by a current or former partner (FBI reports).