Domestic Violence Facts

68% of domestic violence cases involve children as witnesses.
85% of batterers, as children, watched domestic violence occur in their homes and/or experienced child sexual/physical abuse.
50% of the time there is both child abuse and physical abuse in the same home.
50% of willful homicides of females are committed by a past or present intimate partner.
63% of all boys, ages 11-20, who are arrested for murder, have killed the man who was assaulting their mother.
15-25% of all females who are battered are pregnant. The March of Dimes reports that more babies are now born with birth defects because of the mother being battered during pregnancy than from the combination of all diseases and illnesses for which we immunize pregnant women.
80% of runaway children are from violent homes.
Battered women are 2 times more likely to commit suicide.
Battering is the single largest cause of injury to women; more frequent than auto accidents, muggings, and rapes combined.
Women in the U.S. are in 9 times more danger in their own homes; violence in the home is the root cause of violence in the streets.
Juvenile delinquents are 4 times more likely to come from abusive homes.
In 1973, the Police Foundation in Washington D.C., conducted a study of family violence in Kansas City, MO. They found that: In 90% of the family homicides, the police have been to the home at least once prior to the homicide. In 50% of the family homicides, the police had been in the home 5 or more times prior to the homicide.
In 1989, the San Diego Police Department analyzed the 60 family violence homicides that had occurred from 1985-1988. They found that the average number of police calls before a homicide was committed was 8.
Every 9 seconds, an act of domestic violence occurs in the U.S.; averaging 5.3 million women per year.
Children who have witnessed abuse or who have been abused themselves are 1,000 times more likely to abuse a spouse/partner or a child when they become adults than children who are raised in a non-abusive home.
In a 3-year study of 146 children between the ages of 11-17, 62% of the sons over 14 were injured when they attempted to protect their mother from an attack.
Children need only witness their mother's abuse to take on delinquent and violent behavior. The 1985 Mass. Department of Youth Services Study found that children growing up in violent homes have a 6 times greater likelihood of attempting suicide, 74% greater chance of committing crimes, and were 24% times more likely to have committed rape.
There are over 3,800 animal shelters in the U.S. but only 1,200 shelters for battered woman and children. (That is more than three times more)
Up to 50% of all homeless women and children in the U.S. are fleeing domestic violence.
Every 5 years, more women are killed in domestic violent incidents in the U.S. than the U.S. causalities in VietNam.