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Domestic Violence
Community Resources
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Domestic Violence Has a Significant and Lasting Impact on Our Community and BeyondSome Important Facts
Domestic Violence - Local Information • Since the Community Crisis Center opened in 1975, we have provided domestic violence services to many thousands of victims, the majority of them women and their children. From 1999, when we introduced a new database system, through June of 2005, we have served 8,655 adults and 2,072 children in our domestic violence program. • We offer the only emergency on-site domestic violence shelter in Northern Kane County, with beds for up to 40 women and children. In FY 2005 we sheltered 260 women and 274 child witnesses, with an average stay of 15 nights. The majority of women staying in shelter are employed. • We provide individual counseling services in Elgin, Hanover Township and St. Charles, Illinois and support groups in Elgin, St. Charles and West Dundee. 275 women and 211 children participated in support groups. Phone counseling is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week • Since 1994, at least 14 women and 1 man were murdered in domestic violence related homicides in our primary service area of Northern Kane and Northwest Suburban Cook Counties.
Domestic Violence in Illinois • Based on information from the Illinois Department of Human Services and the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence, close to 300,000 women were domestic violence victims in 2003. (Illinois News Network, Illinois Office of the Governor, "Domestic Violence Awareness Month," Press Release, October 1, 2004) • In 2003, domestic violence programs in Illinois responded to 201,249 hotline calls and provided 702,664 hours of services to victims. (Illinois News Network, Illinois Office of the Governor, "Domestic Violence Awareness Month," Press Release, October 1, 2004) • In 2003, programs funded through the Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence provided 259,476 days of safe shelter to adult victims and their children. (Illinois Coalition Against Domestic Violence, website at http://www.ilcadv.org ) • A recent study asked 2,616 women 18 or older who came into Chicago hospitals or health care clinics for any reason if they had been victims of violence or sexual abuse in the previous 12 months, or if they were afraid to go home. 497 (19%) of them responded "yes" to at least one of the questions. Almost half of them (48%) suffered at least one severe or life threatening injury, including broken bones, burns, or threats or attacks with a weapon. 22% of the women had experiences violent incidents 10 or more times in the previous 12 months. (The Chicago Women's Health Risk Study, October 21, 2004, revised September 27, 2004, Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority) • A Northwestern University study of low-income women in Chicago, Boston and San Antonio found that 75% of the women had experienced domestic violence at some point in their lives, and that 33% of them reported experiencing domestic violence within the previous 12 months. (P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale et al., "Work stability threatened by domestic violence," Institute for Policy Research News, Fall 2002, Volume 24, Number 1, page 3)
Domestic Violence in the U.S. (NOTE: Many of these facts and others are available at the Family Violence Prevention Fund's website article " Domestic Violence is a Serious, Widespread Social Problem in America: The Facts, " at http://endabuse.org/resources/facts/ .) • In 2001, intimate partner violence made up 20 percent of violent crime against women. The same year, intimate partners committed three percent of all violent crime against men. (Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001, February 2003) • Women of all races are about equally vulnerable to violence by an intimate. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Violence Against Women: Estimates from the Redesigned Survey, August 1995) • Domestic violence is considered an indirect barrier to women's ability to job search and maintain employment due to the increased risk of health and mental health problems. (Tolman & Rosen, Domestic violence in the lives of women receiving welfare: mental health, substance dependence and economic well-being, Violence Against Women, 7, no. 2) • The health-related costs of rape, physical assault, stalking and homicide committed by intimate partners exceed $5.8 billion each year. Of that amount, nearly $4.1 billion are for direct medical and mental health care services, and nearly $1.8 billion are for the indirect costs of lost productivity or wages. (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States, April 2003) • Adults, including the victim, abuser and law enforcement personnel, often deny that children know about violence in the home because they were not in the room when it happened, but when the children are questioned later about the incident, they can give a detailed description of the event depending on their stage of development. (U.S. Department of Justice, Breaking the cycle of violence: recommendations to improve the criminal justice response to child victims and witnesses, 1999) • One study of 2,245 children and teenagers found that recent exposure to violence in the home was a significant factor in predicting a child's violent behavior. (Singer et al, The mental health consequences of children's exposure to violence, case Western Reserve University, 1998) • Approximately one in five female high school students reports being physically and/or sexually abused by a dating partner. (Silverman et al, "Dating Violence Against Adolescent Girls and Associated Substance Use, Unhealthy Weight Control, Sexual Risk Behavior, Pregnancy, and Suicidality," Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 286, No. 5, 2001) • As many as 324,000 women each year experience intimate partner violence during their pregnancy. (Gazmararian et al, "Violence and reproductive health; current knowledge and future research directions." Maternal and Child Health Journal 2000;4(2):79-84) • Pregnant and recently pregnant women are more likely to be victims of homicide than to die of any other cause, and evidence exists that a significant proportion of all female homicide victims are killed by their intimate partners. (Horon & Cheng, "Enhanced Surveillance for Pregnancy-Associated Mortality - Maryland, 1993 - 1998,"The Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, No. 11, March 21, 2001, and Frye, "Examining Homicide's Contribution to Pregnancy-Associated Deaths," The Journal of the American Medical Association, 285, No. 11, March 21, 2001) • Abusers often use their partners' immigration status as a tool for control. Immigrant women may suffer higher rates of abuse because of cultural differences that accept domestic violence or because of uncertainty about their legal rights under U.S. law. (Dutton et al, "Characteristics of help-seeking behaviors, resources and services needs of battered immigrant Latinas; legal and policy implications," Georgetown Journal on Law and Poverty Law and Policy, 7, no. 2) • Eighty percent of women who are stalked by former husbands are physically assaulted by that partner and 30 percent are sexually assaulted by that partner. (Center for Policy Research, Stalking in America , July 1997) • On average, more than three women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in this country every day. In 2000, 1,247 women were killed by an intimate partner. The same year, 440 men were killed by an intimate partner. (Bureau of Justice Statistics Crime Data Brief, Intimate Partner Violence, 1993-2001 , February 2003) • Same-sex batterers use forms of abuse similar to those of heterosexual batterers. They have an additional weapon in the threat of "outing" their partner to family, friends, employers or community. (Lundy, Abuse That Dare Not Speak Its Name: Assisting Victims of Lesbian and Gay Domestic Violence in Massachusetts , 28 New England Law Review, 273, Winter 1993)
Domestic Violence on a Global Scale • Around the world, at least 1 in every 3 women has been beaten, coerced to have sex or has been otherwise abused at some point in her life. (Heise & Gottemoeller, Ending violence against women: population reports, series L, Number 11, December 1999) • Intimate partner violence occurs in all countries of the world, regardless of social or economic status or religious or cultural group. (Krug, et al, eds., World report on violence and health, World Health Organization, 2002, p. 96) • In-depth qualitative studies in the U.S., Africa, Latin America, Asia and Europe reveal that women around the world give common reasons for staying in abusive relationships, including a fear of losing financial security, concern for the children, a lack of support from family or friends, and a hope that the man will change his behavior. (Krug, et al, eds., World report on violence and health, World Health Organization, 2002, p. 96) • "Violence against women is the greatest human rights scandal of our times. From birth to death, in times of peace as well as war, women face violence and discrimination at the hands of the state, the community and the family." (It's in our hands: stop violence against women, Amnesty International, 2004, p. 1, available at www.amnesty.org )
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