Harvard to Establish Center To Study Nonprofit Sector
Chapter Reports
Facts about domestic violence
- Women were attacked about six times more often by offenders with whom they had an intimate relationship than were male violence victims.
- Nearly 30 percent of all female homicide victims were known to have been killed by their husbands, former husbands, or boyfriends. In contrast, just over 3 percent of male homicide victims were known to have been killed by their wives, former wives, or girlfriends. Husbands, former husbands, boyfriends, and ex-boyfriends committed more than one million violent acts against women in 1995.
- Family members or other people they knew committed more than 2.7 million violent crimes against women. Husbands, former husbands, boyfriends, and ex-boyfriends committed 26 percent of rapes and sexual assaults.
- Forty-five percent of all violent attacks against female victims 12 years old and older by multiple offenders involve offenders they know.
- The rate of intimate-offender attacks on women separated from their husbands was about three times higher than that of divorced women and about 25 times higher than that of married women.
- Women of all races were equally vulnerable to attacks by intimates.
- Female victims of violence were more likely to be injured when attacked by someone they knew than female victims of violence who were attacked by strangers.
