VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN FACT SHEET

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE

• Approximately 4 million women are battered in the United States every year. Most domestic assaults are not reported to law enforcement agencies or domestic violence shelters.

• Injuries that battered women receive are at least as serious as injuries suffered in 90% of violent felony crimes, yet under California state law these crimes are allowed to be treated as misdemeanors.

• Californians made 248,828 domestic violence calls to law enforcement agencies in 1992; 70% (175,353) of those calls involved weapons. California does not track how many of these calls result in arrest or conviction.


HOMICIDE AND INJURY

• California women are 11 times more likely than men to be killed by their spouse, and half as likely than men to be killed by a stranger. For both women and men, the majority of murders are committed by acquaintances (including ex-husband, employer, employee, etc.).


ESCAPING ABUSE

• Although divorced and separated women compose only 7% of the population in the U.S., they account for 75% of all battered women and report being battered 14 times as often as women still living with their partners. Women who leave their batterers are at a 75% greater risk of being killed by the batterer than those who stay.

• There are nearly three times as many animal shelters in the U.S. as there are shelters for battered women. There are inadequate numbers of rape crisis centers and domestic violence shelters in California to serve the numbers of women who need services.


RAPE

• One in seven women who have ever been married have been raped by their husbands or ex-husbands, in 1/3 of these relationships, the rape was repeated 2 to 20 times. in another third, the rape was repeated over twenty times.

• An estimated 20% of reported forcible rapes in California result in an arrest, and an estimated 8% of arrest for forcible rape result in a conviction. Since many rapes are not reported to law enforcement officials, it is estimated that less than 1% of all rapes result in a conviction.

• In California there were 137 arrests for spousal rape in 1992. Only 11% of these arrest resulted in a state prison sentence. Of the 23 rapists convicted in lower courts, none were sentenced to state prison.

• More than 1/3 women, who are raped by someone they know, do not report the crime because they fear reprisal or believe the police will be inefficient.


ECONOMIC IMPACT

• Up to 50% of all homeless women and children in this country are fleeing domestic violence.

• Abusive husbands and lovers harass 74% of employed battered women at work, either in person or over the telephone, causing 20% to lose their jobs.

• Medical expenses form domestic violence total at least $3 to $5 billion annually. Businesses forfeit another $100 million in lost wages, sick leave, absenteeism, and non-productivity.


CHILDREN

• As violence against women becomes more severe and more frequent in the home, children experience a 300% increase in physical violence by the male battered.

• More than 53% of male abusers heat their children.

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