Domestic violence statistics

Domestic violence statistics attempt to provide statistical measures of domestic violence.

Issues

Measures of the incidence of violence in intimate relationships can differ markedly in their findings depending on the measures used. Care is needed when using domestic violence statistics to ensure that both gender bias and under-reporting issues do not affect the inferences that are drawn from the statistics.

Some researchers, such as Michael P. Johnson, suggest that where and how domestic violence is measured also affects findings, and caution is needed to ensure statistics drawn from one class of situations are not applied to another class of situations in a way that might have fatal consequences. [http://www.nzfvc.org.nz/PublicationDetails.aspx?publication=13818 New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse ] ] Other researchers, such as David Murray Fergusson, counter that domestic violence prevention services, and statistics that they produce, target the extreme end of domestic violence and preventing child abuse rather than domestic violence between couples. [ [http://www.nzfvc.org.nz/PublicationDetails.aspx?publication=13825 New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse ] ]

Gender bias

"Community-based samples" show a symmetry in the rates women and men are perpetrators or victims of certain forms of domestic violence. "Agency samples" and "hospital samples" show that men commit up to 90% domestic violence.

Survey approaches to gathering domestic violence statistics tend to show parity in the use of violence by both men and women against partners, while approaches using data from reports of domestic violence offending tends to show women experiencing violence from male partners as the majority of cases (over 80%).

Research based on the survey-based Conflict Tactics Scale, a measure of intrafamily conflict and violence focusing on the adults in the family developed by Murray Straus (1979)Clarifyme|date=May 2008, includes national surveys on the prevalence of domestic violence in the United States and other countries. These include the two U.S. National Family Violence Surveys (1975 and 1985) [http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/VB23.pdf] and the National Violence Against Women Survey (2000) (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000). This research has tended to show that men and women are equally violent.

Research based on reported domestic violence or on police records show men to be the perpetrators and women the victims of most domestic violence. However, the mere intervention of police may introduce a degree of gender bias into reporting.

When faced with a domestic violence situation, police officers often find it far easier to take action against a male protagonist than a female one.Fact|date=July 2008 Removing one party will normally defuse an altercation. Often police will choose the man, because his arrest is not normally going to involve any childrenFact|date=July 2008; while removing the woman may entail involving other social services to care for the children for a time, something that may not be in the children's best interests, or may cause a significant delay. The fact that the majority of police officers are also male and that non-domestic offending is often committed by males may also influence an officer's decision.

Also, police responding to a complaint may act more favorably to the complainant than other parties. Some researchers have suggested that women are more likely to report domestic violence to police than men are, and this is a cause of gender bias. For example, in Ireland, 29% of female victims and 5% of male victims of domestic abuse reported the abuse to the police. [http://www.gov.ie/crimecouncil/downloads/Abuse_Report_NCC.pdf 36091 NCC Doc.indd ] ] In the United States, male victims are less likely than female victims to report rape, physical assault, or stalking. [http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/181867.pdf Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence (NCJ 181867) ] ]

Injury and hospital admission statistics also suggest that males are more frequently perpetrators of injury causing violence.Fact|date=July 2008 However, the relative strengths and other physical differences between males and females could be a factor in this reporting bias, as males may be more likely to injure females in otherwise equivalent circumstances.

Under-reporting

The problem of under-reporting to police is believed to be substantial. However, estimates about how much domestic violence is not reported vary widely. It must also be remembered that a significant amount of non-domestic violence crime is also not reported to police. Depending on what statistics are chosen, anywhere between a tenth of incidents and nothing significantly less than what would be expected for any other incident are reported to police.Clarifyme|date=May 2008

Many crime victimization surveys, from many countries, do show that there is a correlation between the under-reporting of crime and the degree of intimacy between the victim and the offender. The degree of seriousness of offending also affects reporting, with less serious offending less likely to be reported to police. Also the nature of the offending affects reporting, with sexual offenses far less likely to be reported, even when they are serious.

Europe

A 1992 Council of Europe study on domestic violence against women found that 1 in 4 women experience domestic violence over their lifetimes and between 6 and 10% of women suffer domestic violence in a given year.Fact|date=January 2008

United Kingdom

The "British Crime Survey" for 2006-2007 reported that 0.5% of people (0.6% of women and 0.3% of men) reported being victims of domestic violence during that year and 44.3% of domestic violence was reported to the police. According to the survey, and 312,000 women and 93,000 men were victims of domestic violence. [ [http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb1107.pdf Crime in England and Wales 2006/07 ] ]

The "Northern Ireland Crime Survey" for 2005 reported that 13% of people (16% of women and 10% of men) reported being victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives. [http://www.nio.gov.uk/experience_of_domestic_violence__findings_from_the_2005_northern_ireland_crime_survey.pdf]

The "National Study of Domestic Abuse" for 2005 reported that 213,000 women and 88,000 men reported being victims of domestic violence at some point in their lives. According to the study, one in seven women and one in sixteen men were victims of severe physical abuse, severe emotional abuse, or sexual abuse.

In the United Kingdom, the police estimate that around 35% of domestic violence against women is actually reported.Fact|date=July 2008 A 2002 Women's Aid study found that 74% of separated women suffered from post-separation violence.Fact|date=March 2007

Hello

United States

The "National Violence Against Women Survey" for 2000 reported that 25% of women and 7.6% of men reported being victims of intimate partner violence at some point in their lives. It also reported that 1.5% (or 1.5 million) of women and 0.9% (or 0.83 million) of men reported being victims of rape or physical assault for the past year.

According to [http://www.mediaradar.org/media_fact_sheet.php Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting (RADAR) report] :

* Women are just as likely as men to engage in partner aggression [http://www.law.fsu.edu/journals/lawreview/downloads/304/kelly.pdf (Kelly 2003)]
* Men experience over one-third of DV-related injuries (Psychological Bulletin, Vol. 126, No. 5, pages 651-680)
* Men are far less likely to report DV incidents than women (Stets and Straus 1990)
* The myths about domestic violence are numerous [http://www.mincava.umn.edu/documents/factoid/factoid.html (Gelles 1995)]
* Many of these myths are based on DV studies that use biased survey methods (Arriaga and Oskamp 1999)

According to Southern Connecticut State University: "In 95% of family violence cases the victims are women beaten by male partners. In 1% of the cases the reverse is true. There are an estimated 28 million battered women in the U.S., more than half of all married women in the country. In the U.S., one woman is beaten by her husband or partner every 9 seconds. Battering is the single major cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44 in the U.S.; more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined. 70% of the assault victims seen in the emergency room of Boston City Hospital are women who have been attacked in their own homes. 3 out of 5 women in the U.S. will be battered in their lifetime." [http://www.southernct.edu/departments/womenscenter/safe/domvio.htm Domestic Violence Facts]

Eighty-five percent of these orders are issued against men [http://www.iwf.org/specialreports/specrpt_detail.asp?ArticleID=815 (Young, Independent Women’s Forum, 2005)] . Family judges often issue orders of protection or restraining orders in the absence of any direct threat of harm [http://pegasus.rutgers.edu/~review/ (Heleniak, Rutgers Law Review, Spring 2005)] . Often these orders are used as "part of the gamesmanship of divorce." ( [http://www.isba.org/IBJ/home.asp Kasper, Illinois Bar Journal, June 2005] and [http://www.law.com/jsp/nj/index.jsp Kiernan, New Jersey Law Journal, April 1988] )

New research published in the [http://www.apa.org/journals/fam/description.html Journal of Family Psychology] says that contrary to media and public opinion women commit more acts of violence than men in eleven categories: throw something, push, grab, shove, slap, kick, bite, hit or threaten a partner with a knife or gun. The study, which is based on interviews with 1,615 married or cohabiting couples and extrapolated nationally using census data, found that 21 percent of couples reported domestic violence. [http://www.washingtontimes.com/culture/20060511-112526-4029r.htm The Washington Times confirms study.]

Dr. Gerald P. Koocher, American Psychology Association President, [http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct06/pc.html stated October 2006] that "psychological science is not politically correct." He adds, "Several studies of domestic violence have suggested that males and females in relationships have an equal likelihood of acting out physical aggression, although differing in tactics and potential for causing injury (e.g., women assailants will more likely throw something, slap, kick, bite, or punch their partner, or hit them with an object, while males will more likely beat up their partners, and choke or strangle them)."

Australia

Recent findings - 2006 - from the * [http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/4906.02005?OpenDocument Australian Bureau of Statistics Personal Safety Survey] show that overall, more males than females are victims of physical assault (10.8% vs 5.8%). However, women are most at risk of assault in the home and from men they know, while men are most at risk of assault in public spaces and from men they don’t know. Among the large numbers of men physically assaulted each year, close to 70 per cent were assaulted by strangers. Less than five per cent were assaulted by a female partner or ex-partner. In contrast, among the female victims of physical assault, 31 per cent were assaulted by a male partner or ex-partner (Table 16, p. 30). Thirty per cent of people who had experienced violence by a current partner since the age of 15 were male, while seventy per cent were female (Table 2, p.16).

Men's rights activists and others supporting male victims argue that there is a range of socialization related factors that would lead to very high levels of under-reporting by male victims. They also argue that until recently, very few studies asked about female-on-male (or female-on-female) domestic violence; so while these figures are appallingly high, the prevalence of violence against men is typically not included in the figures.

References