Domestic violence statistics
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Domestic violence statistics attempt to provide statistical measures of domestic violence.
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[edit] 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 (e.g. Johnson [1]) 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. Other researchers (e.g. Fergusson et al. [2]) counter that domestic violence prevention services, and associated statistics, that target the extreme end of domestic violence are about preventing child abuse rather than domestic violence between couples.
[edit] Gender bias
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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) has included national surveys on the prevalence of family violence in the U.S. and other countries. These include the two U.S. National Family Violence Surveys (Straus & Gelles, 1990), the National Violence Against Women Survey (Tjaden & Thoennes, 2000), this research has tended to show men and women equally violent.
Research based on reported domestic violence or on police records show men to be responsible for the majority of domestic violence and the high frequency of women as victims. 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. Removing one party will normally defuse an altercation. Often police will choose the man, because his arrest is not normally going to involve any children; 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 favourably 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.
Injury and hospital admission statistics also suggest that males are perpetrators of injury causing violence. 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.
[edit] 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.
What many crime victimisation 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 offences far less likely to be reported, even when they are serious.
The National Crime Council of Ireland report of July 2005 Domestic Abuse of Women and Men in Ireland Page 26 states “Only a minority (one in five) had reported the behaviour to the Guardai [police], however men are less likely than women to report (five percent of those severely abused compared to 29 per cent of women).”
[edit] Europe
A Council of Europe study (1992) found that 1 in 4 women experience domestic violence over their lifetimes and between 6-10% of women suffer domestic violence in a given year.[citation needed]
[edit] United Kingdom
The British Crime Survey for the year 2001-2 reported, "There were an estimated 12.9 million incidents of domestic violence acts (nonsexual threats or force) against women [84%] and 2.5 million against men [16%] in England and Wales in the year prior to interview." The same report states, "Four per cent of women and two per cent of men were subject to domestic violence (non-sexual domestic threats or force) during the last year."
Northern Ireland Office report of 5 July 2007 Experience of Domestic Violence: Findings from the 2005 Northern Ireland Crime Survey Page 6 “…shows the comparative figures for prevalence of domestic violence in Northern Ireland compared with England and Wales as identified by the 2005/06 British Crime Survey (BCS). The findings suggest that victimisation rates in Northern Ireland are consistently lower than in England and Wales. Twenty-eight percent of females and 17% of males in England and Wales claimed to be victims of intimate partner abuse during their lifetime compared with 15% of females and 10% of males in Northern Ireland.”
In the United Kingdom, the police estimate that around 35% of domestic violence against women is actually reported, a 2002 Women's Aid study found that 74% of separated women suffered from post-separation violence. .[citation needed]
[edit] United States
It is estimated that every year in the United States, approximately 3 million women are assaulted by their partner. One in four women in the U.S. will be assaulted by their partner over their lifetimes.[citation needed]
In 1998 in the U.S., of the approximately 1.5 million violent crimes committed between intimate partners, over 874,000 of the victims were women, and over 832,000 were men.[citation needed]. Of the approximately 1,830 murders committed against intimate partners in 1998, 3 out of 4 of the victims were women. In 2001 according to the United States Census Bureau there were 691,710 non-fatal domestic violence acts committed and 1,247 fatal incidents. In homes where domestic violence occurs, children in the home are at a 300% greater risk of being abused..[citation needed]
- 6-12% of women are abused in a given year
- 20-30% of women receiving welfare are current victims of Domestic Violence
- 30-65% of all homicides of women are related to Domestic Violence by their male partners
According to Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting (RADAR) report:
- Women are just as likely as men to engage in partner aggression (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 (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." Domestic Violence Facts
Eighty-five percent of these orders are issued against men (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 (Heleniak, Rutgers Law Review, Spring 2005). Often these orders are used as "part of the gamesmanship of divorce." (Kasper, Illinois Bar Journal, June 2005 and Kiernan, New Jersey Law Journal, April 1988)
New research published in the 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. The Washington Times confirms study.
Dr. Gerald P. Koocher, American Psychology Association President, 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)."
[edit] Australia
Recent findings - 2006 - from the * Australian Bureau of Statistics Personal Safety Surveyshow 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.
