New York City Statistics

• The NYC police responded to 226,272 domestic violence incidents in New York City during 2005.¹
• During 2005 the City’s Domestic Violence Hotline answered 124,515 calls.²
• The New York City Police Department recorded 68 family-related homicides during 2005. In 66% of these cases, no prior police report had been filed.³

National Statistics

• 1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence during her lifetime.⁴
• Both men and women can be victims of domestic violence, but by far, the majority of survivors are women. In 2001, women accounted for 85 percent of the victims of intimate partner violence (588,490 total) as compared to 15 percent for men victims (103,220 total).⁵
• In 2001, 20% of violent crime against women was intimate partner violence, compared to 3% of violent crime against men.⁶
• 1 in 5 women and 1 in 33 men have experienced an attempted or completed rape.⁷
• Seventy-eight percent of stalking victims are women. Women are significantly more likely than men to be stalked by intimate partners. Eighty percent of women who are stalked by former husbands are physically and 30 percent are sexually assaulted by them.⁸
• Child abuse coexists with domestic violence in up to 70% of violent households.⁹

1. Domestic Violence Fact Sheet, New York City Mayor's Office to Combat Domestic Violence, August 2006.
2. Domestic Violence Fact Sheet, New York City Mayor's Office to Combat Domestic Violence, August 2006.
3. Domestic Violence Fact Sheet, New York City Mayor's Office to Combat Domestic Violence, August 2006.
4. Extent, Nature, and Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence. (Tjaden, Patricia & Thoennes, Nancy. National Institute of Justice and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 2000).
5. Intimate Partner Violence 1993-2001, Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, February 2003.
6. Intimate Partner Violence 1993-2001, Rennison, Callie Marie. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, February 2003.
7. Intimate Partner Violence and Age of Victim, 1993-99, Rennison, Callie Marie. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, October 2001.
8. Stalking in America, Center for Policy Research, July 1997.
9. On the Relationship Between Wife Beating and Child Abuse” in Yillo & Gofrad, Feminist Perspectives on Wife Abuse, Bowker, Arbitell & McFerron, 158, 162 (1998), quoted in NCADV Children & Domestic Violence Facts.

All teens, regardless of ethnicity, or socioeconomic background are vulnerable to relationship violence. Relationship abuse also happens in same-sex relationships.

• Studies throughout the United States show that anywhere between 20% to as high as 69% of teens experience violence at the hands of their dating partners.¹
• In a study of 500 teens in New York City, between 17 and 23% of those interviewed had been intimidated, threatened, hit or slapped by their partner, and 25% reported being verbally abused through insults, humiliation and embarrassment. Yet only 14% of these teens described themselves as being in abusive relationships.²
• Another study of over 600 high school students revealed that nearly one-third of the respondents interpreted violent acts as acts of love.³
• Both male and female teens may be victims. But boys more often cause serious physical injuries. Girls are more likely to receive injuries requiring medical attention.
• Teen relationship abuse is largely unreported. Various studies estimate that as few as 4% of teens involved in violent relationships report the violence to authority figures such as teachers, counselors or police.⁴
• Nearly 80% of teens who have been physically abused in their intimate relationships continue to date their abusers.⁵
• One study shows that 30% of battered women married men who had abused them while dating.⁶
• Young women age 16-24 experience the highest rate of domestic violence - 16 per 1,000persons.⁷

1. Jezel, Molidor and Wright, “Physical, Sexual and Psychological Abuse in High School Dating Relationships: Prevalence Rates and Self-Esteem Issues,” Child and Adolescent Social Work Journal 13 (February1996) 69

2. “Domestic Violence Survey at Covenant House New York,” Covenant House Public Policy and Legislative Advocacy Notes“ (Spring 1999).

3. Kris Worell, “When Teenage Relationships Become Abusive,” Atlanta Journal Constitution, April 14,1993, as cited by Toby Simon and Bethany Golden, Dating: Peer Education for Reducing Sexual Harrassment aand Violence Among Secondary Students (Holmes Beach, FL: Learning Publications, 1996).

4. Libby Bergman, “Dating Violence Among High School Students,” Social Work 37 (1992) 23.

5. Bergman

6. Bruce Roscoe, et al., “Courtship Violence Experienced by Abused Wives: Similarities in Patterns of Abuse” Family Relations (July 1985)

7. Hart, Timothy C. & Rennison, Callie. U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, —Reporting Crime to the Police, 1992-2000.“(March 2003).