• One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime. [1]

• Domestic violence is one of the most chronically underreported crimes. [2]

• Intimate partner violence results in more than 18.5 million mental health care visits each year. [3]

• Boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults.  [4]

• In the years 1976-2005, 23.5% of all murder victims were women, but 64.8% of victims murdered by intimate partners were women. [5]

• 32% of teens reported emotional abuse or physical violence in a relationship in the last 18 months [6]

• Battered women are at increased risk for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [7]

• Nearly three out of four (74%) of Americans personally know someone who is or has been a victim of domestic violence. 30% of Americans say they know a woman who has been physically abused by her husband or boyfriend in the past year.[8]

• Intimate partner violence represents 22% of nonfatal violence against females.[9]

• 30% of the women murdered in 2005, were murdered by their intimate partner.[10]

Appendix – Sources:

[1] Tjaden, Patricia & Thoennes, Nancy.  National Institute of Justice and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, “Extend, Nature and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence:  Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey” (2000) [2] U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics. “Criminal Victimization,” 2003 [3] Costs of Intimate Partner violence Against Women in the United States, 2003.  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Centers for Injury Prevention and Control.  Atlanta, GA.  Tjaden, Patricia & Thoennes, Nancy. [4] Strauss, Gelles, and Smith, “Physical Violence in American Families:  Risk Factors and Adaptations to Violence” in 8,145 Families.  Transaction Publishers (1990) [5] Fox, J & Zawitz, M. (2006). Homicide Trends in the United States.  Retrieved from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/homicide/homtrnd.htm#contents [6] Halpern, C.T., Oslak, S. G., Young, M.L., Martin, S.L. & Kupper, L.L. (2001) Partner violence among adolescents in opposite-sex romantic relationships:  Finding from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health.  American Journal of Public Health, 91(10), 1679-1685 [7] PTSD; Jones, Hughes, & Unterstaller, (2001)  Handbook on Domestic Violence (pg298) [8] Allstate Foundation National Poll on Domestic Violence, 2006.  Lieberman Research Inc., Tracking Survey conducted for The Advertising Council and the Family violence Prevention Fund, July-October 1996. [9] US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2007 [10] ibid.