In US, a decline in domestic violence

In the two decades since the United States Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act, domestic violence has declined dramatically.

In the two decades since the United States Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act, domestic violence has declined dramatically.

Annual rates of nonfatal domestic violence fell by 63 percent between 1994 and 2012 – from 13.5 victimizations per 1,000 people to 5 per 1,000. This is a count by the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) of such crimes as rape, assault, and robbery committed by intimate partners, former partners, or family members. The figures are based on a national survey and include both reported and unreported crimes against people over age 12.

In a BJS count of serious intimate partner violence against women, the numbers dropped 72 percent between 1994 and 2011. And from 1993 to 2007, the annual number of female victims of homicides by intimate partners declined from 2,200 to 1,640; male victims from 1,100 to 700.

The Violence Against Women Act “put real money behind the issue for the first time: $1.62 billion.... Nobody did anything for women at that time that had a ‘b’ after it” in terms of funding, says Kim Gandy, president and chief executive officer of the Washington-based National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV).

The money helped hire and train police and raise awareness among prosecutors and judges, and bring them together with community groups and experts to create comprehensive plans, Ms. Gandy says. “It was an enormous undertaking and we’re still working out how to get there, but we get better at it every year.”

Other factors that have likely influenced the decline in domestic violence include the aging of the population and the improved economic status of women.

Whether the progress can be sustained is another question. Domestic violence programs have endured cuts from many funding sources in recent years. A 2013 NNEDV survey of 1,649 domestic violence programs found that 66,581 people were served in a single 24-hour period. In that same 24 hours, however, 9,641 requests for shelter, transportation, legal services, or other help couldn’t be met because of insufficient resources.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to In US, a decline in domestic violence
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Points-of-Progress/2014/0826/In-US-a-decline-in-domestic-violence
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe