Safe Journey

Statistics

  • One of every three homeless women in Minnesota is homeless at least in part due to domestic violence.(Wilder Research Center, 2003)
  • More than 80 percent of victims of domestic violence in Minnesota did not report the incidents to law enforcement.(2002 Minnesota Crime Survey)
  • 90 - 95 percent of domestic violence victims are women.(Bureau of Justice Statistics)
  • Each year, an estimated 3.3 million children are exposed to violence against their mothers or female caretakers by family members.( American Psychological Association, Violence and the Family Task Force, 1996)
  • One in every four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.( Tjaden, Thoennes; National Institute of Justice and the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, 2002)
  • An estimated 1.3 million women are victims of physical assault by an intimate partner each year. ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Centers for Injury Prevention and Control, 2003)
  • The cost of intimate partner violence exceeds $5.8 billion each year, $4.1 billion of which is for direct medical and mental health services. ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Centers for Injury Prevention and Control, 2003 )
  • Witnessing violence between one's parents or caretakers is the strongest risk factor of transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next. ( Break the Cycle, "Startling Statistics" 2006 )
  • Boys who witness domestic violence are twice as likely to abuse their own partners and children when they become adults. ( Strauss, Gelles, & Smith: "Physical Violence in American Families: 1990 )
  • In Minnesota in 2008 (from Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women Femicide Report 2008):
    • At least 21 women were murdered in cases where the suspected, alleged, or convicted perpetrator was a current or former husband, boyfriend, or intimate partner, or was a family member or household member of the deceased woman.
      • At least 25 children where left motherless due to their mothers' domestic violence murders.
    • At least seven children were murdered in cases where the suspected, alleged, or convicted perpetrator was the father, mother, guardian, household/family member of the child, or was the parent's spouse or intimate partner.
    • At least two men were murdered by an intimate partner.
    • At least five friends or family members were murdered in domestic violence-related situations.