Facts About Domestic Violence
(Continued From Previous Page)

Eight percent of high school age girls said “yes” when asked if “a boyfriend or date has ever forced sex against your will.”

Forty percent of teenage girls age 14 to 17 report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend.

During the 1996-97 school year, there were an estimated 4,000 incidents of rape or other types of sexual assault in public schools across the country.

In a national survey of more than 2,000 American families, more than 50% of the men who frequently assaulted their wives also frequently abused their children.

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

Slightly more than half of female victims of intimate partner violence live in households with children under age 12.

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In November 1998 The Centers for Disease Control and the National Institute of Justice released the following results of their joint study:

Physical assault (defined as a range of behaviors from slapping, shoving to threatening with a gun) is widespread in American society: 52 percent of surveyed women and 66 percent of surveyed men said they were physically assaulted as a child by an adult caretaker and/or as an adult by any type of perpetrator.

Interpersonal violence in the U.S. is primarily male violence. The study found that most violence perpetrated against adults is perpetrated by males: 93 percent of the women and 86 percent of the men who were raped and/or physically assaulted since the age of 18 were assaulted by a male. Given these findings, adult violence prevention strategies should focus primarily on the risks posed by male perpetrators.

U.S. men are primarily raped and physically assaulted by strangers and acquaintances, not intimate partners.
Violence against women is primarily partner violence. The study confirms previous reports that U.S. women are primarily raped and/or physically assaulted by intimate partners: 76 percent of women who were raped and/or physically assaulted since age 18 were assaulted by a current or former husband, cohabiting partner, or date.

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