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Domestic Violence Fact Sheet
Abuse in California
- Every year, almost 6% of California ’s women suffer physical injuries from domestic violence. (California Women’s Health Survey, 1998-99).
- In 2002, 153 murders were the result of intimate partner violence in California . (California Department of Justice [DOJ], Criminal Justice Statistics)
- In 2002, 128 women in California were killed by their husbands, ex-husbands or boyfriends, and 25 men were killed by their wives, ex-wives or girlfriends. (DOJ, Criminal Justice Statistics Center )
- California law enforcement received 196,569 domestic violence calls in 2002 --- 119,850 involved weapons, including firearms and knives. (DOJ, Criminal Justice Statistics Center )
- About 916,000 children were exposed to intimate partner violence at home in 1998. (Department of Health Services, California Women’s Health Survey, 1998-99).
- Nearly 1 in 5 women who went hungry because they did not have enough money to buy food was also a victim of intimate partner violence (Department of Health Services, California Women’s Health Survey, 1998-99).
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Domestic Violence Facts
- Approximately 1.5 million women and 834,700 men are raped and/or physically assaulted by an intimate partner each year (Tjaden and Thoennes 2000a).
- Nearly two-thirds of women who reported being raped, physically assaulted, or stalked since age 18 were victimized by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, boyfriend, or date (Tjaden and Thoennes 2000a).
- Among women who are physically assaulted or raped by an intimate partner, one in three is injured. Each year, more than 500,000 women injured as a result of IPV require medical treatment (Tjaden and Thoennes 2000a).
- As many as 324,000 women each year experience IPV during their pregnancy (Gazmararian, et al. 2000).
Firearms were the major weapon type used in intimate partner homicides from 1981 to 1998 (Paulozzi, et al. 2001).
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National Statistics
- On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. In the same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner (Bureau of Justice Statistics Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003).
- According to estimates from the National Crime Victimization Survey, there were nearly 700,000 nonfatal violence victimizations committed by current or former spouses, boyfriends, or girlfriends of the victims during 2001. out of this number, 85% were crimes against women. (U.S. Department of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March 1998).
- Thirty seven percent of women who sought treatment in an emergency room for violence-related injuries were injured by a current or former intimate partner. (U.S. Department of Justice, Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, March 1998).
- Abuse in relationships exists among all classes, races and cultural groups, although women between ages 16 and 24 are nearly three times more vulnerable to intimate partner violence (Intimate Partner Violence & Age of Victim, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1999).
- A recent National Crime Victimization survey found that women were 6 times more than men to experience violence at the hands of an intimate partner. Intimate partners include current or former spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, dating partners, regardless of whether they are cohabiting or not. (Violence Against Women: Estimates from the Re-designed Survey, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Dept. of Justice, 1998).
- In a national study of college students, 27.5% of the women surveyed said that they had suffered rape or attempted rape at least once since age 14. Only 5% of those experiences were reported to the police. The term “hidden rape” has emerged because this survey and many other studies found that sexual assaults are seldom reported to the police. (Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control, 2003).
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Power and Control Wheel
Abuse in relationships is described as the use of power and control by one person over an intimate partner. In most abusive relationships, physical violence is only one part of the violence, and may even be a rare event. The "Power and Control Wheel" created by the Domestic Violence Project, Inc. in Duluth , vividly portrays how this works.
The spokes on the wheel illustrate the many ways abusers exert power and control. The outer rim of the wheel depicts physical violence. As long as the psychological abuse, threats and intimidation keeps an abused person under control in the batterer's mind, physical violence is unnecessary. All that is required is the threat of violence. This might explain why the abuser feels justified in blaming his/her victim for the need to hit or physically abuse him/her: she/he wasn't obeying, complying, doing her job, etc., so she needed to be punished or reminded of her duty.
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Types of Abuses
- Physical abuse – includes slapping, hitting, kicking, choking, grabbing, pinching, shoving, punching, etc. or the use of a weapon; also included being forced to use alcohol or drugs.
- Sexual abuse – includes any coerced or forced sexual contact, undermining a person’s sexuality, unprotected sex and rape in marriage.
- Verbal/emotional abuse – includes name-calling, insults, put-downs, threats belittling, silent treatment, criticism etc.
- Psychological abuse – includes intimidation, isolation from family and friends, harassing and/or attempts to control one’s behavior.
- Economic abuse – includes attempts to make someone financially dependent, i.e. withholding money, keeping someone from work or school, harassing someone at work, controlling all incomes, and requiring justification for any monies spent.
- Legal abuse – includes dragging out legal/custody proceedings, refusing to pay support or alimony, withholding assets, and fighting for custody solely to maintaining control over the victim’s whereabouts.
- Financial abuse – includes withholding money, having to account for every penny, refusing to pay bills/creditors, no money of your own, not allowed to work.
Destroying possessions or treasured objects, hitting walls, breaking doors, abusing and/or killing one’s pets are acts of psychological domestic violence.
The effects of abuse are serious: Victims of domestic violence may suffer short term and long-term symptoms of isolation, depression, low self-esteem, physical illness, withdrawal, anger or rage, confusion or chronic fear. Without intervention domestic violence will escalate and can lead to the serious injury or death of the victim and/or the batterer.
Abuse may occur frequently or infrequently, but in most cases it tends to escalate in severity and frequency over time.
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What is Domestic Violence
Domestic violence is a deliberate pattern of assaultive and controlling behaviors, including physical, sexual, and psychological attacks, that one intimate partner does to another to gain power and maintain control.
It is not marital conflict, a lover’s quarrel, or just a private family matter. It is a serious social problem. The batterer may be a husband, ex-husband, boyfriend, partner (including same sex), ex-partner, or a housemate. Abuse and violence are learned behaviors.
It is a crime for anyone to inflict physical injury upon his or her spouse or anyone with whom the person is living with (penal code section 273.5).
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Why She Stays
This is the number one question most people want to understand. The question, however, should be "Why does he batter?" The question why does she stay places the blame on the victim. The reality is that the majority of battered women make heroic efforts at leaving, but because of the following reasons, most are unsuccessful:
- Fear: The number one reason for not leaving is fear. According to the FBI, up to 40% of female homicides in any given year occur when the woman decides to leave the abusive relationship. Her fears are not unfounded! Given this face, it is very important that the battered woman's expression of fear not be minimized. If a decision to leave has been made, a safety plan should be put in place.
- Lack of Resources: Since one of the major components of abuse is isolation, the battered woman most often lacks a support system. Her family ties and friendships have been destroyed leaving her psychologically and financially dependent on the abusive partner.
- Lack of Finances/Economic Reality: The economic reality for women (particularly those with children" is a bleak one. This is especially true for women who have not worked outside the home. Economic dependence on the abuser is a very real reason for remaining in the relationship. Public assistance programs have been drastically reduced and those that remain provide inadequate benefits.
- Children: Being a single parent is a strenuous experience under the best of circumstances, and for most battered women, conditions are far from the best. The enormous responsibility of raising children alone can be overwhelming. Often, the abuser may threaten to take the children away from her if she even attempts to leave.
- Feelings of Guilt: The woman may believe that her husband is "sick" and/or needs her help; the idea of leaving can thus produce feelings of guilt.
- Promises of Reform: As is consistent with the cycle of violence, the abuser promises it will never happen again; the victim wants to believe this is true.
- Sex-Role Conditioning: Most women are still taught to be passive and dependent on men. In addition, women generally accept the responsibility for success or failure in their relationships; to leave is to admit failure.
- Religious Beliefs and Values: Religious beliefs reinforce the commitment to marriage. Many faiths hold that the husband is head of the family and it is a wife's duty to be submissive to him. This may be a powerful reason for staying in a destructive relationship.
- Societal Acceptance /Reinforcement of Violence to Women/Wives: Many people turn a "deaf ear" to marital violence and believe what goes on behind closed doors is a "private matter." The observance of a burglary, child abuse, or even cruelty to animals in the neighborhood might quickly be reported; whereas, an assault on a wife or significant other may not.
- Love for Spouse: Most people enter a relationship for love, and that emotion does not simply disappear easily or in the face of difficulty. After a battering, the abuser often is extremely penitent. Because her self-esteem is so low following the incident, the apologies and promises of reform are often perceived as the end of the abuse.
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