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 Facts
About Domestic Violence
(Continued From Previous Page)
 22.1 percent of women and 7.4 percent of men in this
study reported being physically assaulted by an intimate
partner in their lifetime. Differences between women
and men’s rates of physical assault by an intimate
partner become greater as the seriousness of the assault
increases. For example, women were 7 to 14 times more
likely to report that an intimate partner beat them up,
choked or tried to drown them, threatened them with a
gun, or actually used a gun on them.
Rape is primarily a crime against youth. More than half
(54 percent) of the female rape victims identified by
the study were under 18 years old when they experienced
their first rape and 22 percent were under 12 years old.
Based on the results of this
study, the following conclusions regarding social policy
were reported:
Violence against women should be treated as a significant
social problem. An estimated 876,000 rapes and 5.9 million
physical assaults are perpetrated against U.S. women
annually. Given the pervasiveness of rape and physical
assault among American women, it is imperative that violence
against women be treated as a major criminal justice
and public health concern.
Women are at greater risk of partner violence than men.
The study found that women were significantly more likely
than men to report being raped and physically assaulted
by a current or former intimate partner, whether the
timeframe considered was the person’s lifetime
or the 12 months preceding the study. Moreover, women
who were raped or physically assaulted by a current or
former intimate partner were significantly more likely
to sustain serious injuries than men who were raped or
physically assaulted by a current or former intimate
partner. Given these findings, intimate partner violence
should be considered first and foremost a crime against
women.
Violence against women is predominantly partner violence.
Of the women who reported being raped and/or physically
assaulted since the age of 18, three-quarters (76 percent)
were victimized by a current or former husband, cohabiting
partner, date, or boyfriend. Given these findings, violence-against-women
intervention strategies should focus on the risks posed
to women by current and former husbands, cohabiting partners,
dates, and boyfriends.
Rape should be viewed as a crime committed primarily
against youth. The study confirms previous reports that
most rape victims are children or adolescents. Given
these findings, rape prevention strategies should focus
on rapes perpetrated against minors, and rape research
should focus on the long-term effects of rape occurring
at an early age.
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