Shannan M. Catalano, Ph.D., Bureau of Justice Statistics

November 21, 2013    NCJ 243300

Presents data on trends in nonfatal intimate partner violence among U.S. households from 1993 to 2011. Intimate partner violence includes rape, sexual assault, robbery, aggravated assault, and simple assault by a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend. This report focuses on attributes of the victimization such as the type of crime, type of attack, whether the victim was threatened before the attack, use of a weapon by the offender, victim injury, and medical treatment received for injuries. The report also describes ways these attributes of the victimization may be used to measure seriousness or severity of the incident. Data are from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), which collects information on nonfatal crimes reported and not reported to the police. The NCVS is a self-report survey administered every six months to persons age 12 or older from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households.

Highlights:

• From 1994 to 2011, the rate of serious intimate partner violence declined 72% for females and 64% for males. „„
• Nonfatal serious violence comprised more than a third of intimate partner violence against females and males during the most recent 10-year period (200211). „„
• An estimated two-thirds of female and male intimate partner victimizations involved a physical attack in 200211; the remaining third involved an attempted attack or verbal threat of harm. „„
• In 200211, 8% of female intimate partner victimizations involved some form of sexual violence during the incident. „„
• About 4% of females and 8% of males who were victimized by an intimate partner were shot at, stabbed, or hit with a weapon in 200211.

Part of the Intimate Partner Violence Series

Press Release
Full report (PDF 1M)
ASCII file (33K)
Comma-delimited format (CSV) (Zip format 25K)

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