Every year, domestic violence kills 4.5 million women
A woman is beaten every 9 seconds.

NBC Nightly News, NBC television network, October, 1996, and “Domestic Violence,” on the television series, The Justice Files, Discovery Channel, 1998. Also, “The Facts,” Family Violence Prevention Fund, Internet site, 1998.

Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between ages 15-44 in the U.S.—more than car accidents, muggings, rapes and cancer combined.

Surgeon General, United States Public Health Services, Journal of The American Medical Association, 276, no. 23 (June 17, 1992), 3132.

Male Children who witness adult-to adult domestic violence are, as adults, 700 times more likely to beat their partners.
Male children who also are physically abused are, as adults, 1,000 times more likely to beat their female partners

Murray A. Straus, Richard J. Gelles, and Suzanne K. Steinmetz; Behind Closed Doors; Violence in the American Family (New York, Anchor Press 1981)

Battering is considered a misdemeanor in most states rather than a felony, yet injuries suffered by battered women are at lest as serious as injuries suffered in 90 percent of violent felony crimes.

Joan Zorza, “The Gender Bias Committee’s Domestic Violence Study”, 1989, as reported in a NCADV fact sheet.

The former U. S. Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop, labeled domestic violence the “number one health problem in America.”

Televised news conference from the White House, Washington, D.C., CBS television network, March 1, 1989.

A National Crime Survey labeled the American home at night the most dangerous place to be and the most likely setting for homicide to occur.

Battered Into Submission, James Alsdurf & Phyllis Alsdurf, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 1998.

Domestic Violence is the most underreported crime in this country. Only 10% of all domestic violence incidents are ever reported.

Statistics from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation Report on Domestic Violence.

In 24-30 percent of all homes violence occurs on a regular, ongoing basis.

“Fact Sheet” Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Internet site www.ccadv.org,1998.

Up to thirty-five percent of the women who visit emergency rooms are there for injuries related to ongoing abuse.

The Journal of American Medical Association, as reported in a fact sheet of the National Coalition Against domestic violence (NCADV), 1990.

Contrary to the belief that domestic violence works both ways, in 95% of all domestic violence assaults, crimes are committed by men against women.

Taken from the “Report to the Nation on Crime and Justice”, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1983, as quoted in “Battered But Not Broken, Patricia Riddle Gaddis, Judson Press, 1996.

About 75% of the calls to law enforcement for intervention and assistance in domestic violence occur after separation from batterers. One study revealed that half of the homicides of female spouses and partners were committed by men after separation from their batterers.

(Barbara Hart, Remarks to the Task Force on Child Abuse and Neglect,
April, 1992).

The National Clearing House for the Defense of Battered women reports that divorced and separated women are battered fourteen times as often as women still living with their partners and account for 75% of all battered women.

Legislative History of S.B. 924, 1995, passed into law as California Code of Civil Procedure, as reported in “Stop Domestic Violence-an Acton Plan for Saving Lives, Lou, Brown, Francios Dubau, Merritt McKeon, St Martin Press, 1997.

“The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence says that for every woman who is admitted into a shelter, two are turned away, a number that more than doubles in some urban areas.”

Quoted taken from “Broken and Battered”, Muriel Canfield, Howard Publishing Company, 2000.

Violence will occur at least once in 50 percent of all marriages.

“Fact Sheet,” Colorado Coalition Against Domestic Violence, Internet site at www.ccadv.org,1998.

Roughly every other married woman you meet will at some point in her marriage experience at least one incident of physical violence at the hands of her husband.

Battered Into Submission, James and Phyllis Alsdurf, 1998, Wipf and Stock Publishers.

Nationally, 50% of all homeless women and children are on the streets because of violence in the home.

Elizabeth Schneider, “Legal Reform Efforts for Battered Women” report (self-published, 1990).

Women who leave their batterers are at a 75 percent greater risk of being killed by the batterer than are those who stay, according to Barbara Hart in the October, 1988 issue of Esquire Magazine.

“Angry Men and the Women Who Love Them, Paul Hegstrom, Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1999, Page 27.

Women of all cultures, races, occupations, income levels, and ages are battered by husbands, boyfriends, lovers and partners.

(Surgeon General Antonia Novello, as quoted in Domestic Violence: Battered Women, publication of the Reference Department of the Cambridge Public Library, Cambridge, MA).

The American family and the American home are perhaps more violent than any other single American institution or setting with the exception of the military in time of war.

Murry A.Straus, Richard J. Gelles, and Suzanne K. Steinmetz. Behind closed Doors: Violence in the American Family (New York: Anchor Press. 1981).