Population size:
328, 239, 523 (2019) [1]
Number of people experiencing domestic abuse each year:
In the United States, as many as one in four women and one in nine men are victims of domestic violence. [2]
Cost of domestic abuse to the economy each year:
Annual costs of intimate partner violence were calculated at $5.8 billion in the United States of America.[3]
However, 'the national economic cost of domestic and family violence is estimated to be over 12 billion dollars per year'. [4]
Estimated % change due to COVID-19:
The LSE wrote a blog post featuring a study that investigated US data and that found that 'calls between 2019 and 2020, before and after March 9 (controlling for various state and seasonal trends), we estimate that domestic violence was about 10.2 percent higher during the last few weeks of March in 2020 compared with the same weeks in 2019'. 'Our estimates suggest that the pandemic has led to about 3.3 more domestic violence calls per city every day. If the entire United States experienced a similar increase, the result would be about 1,350 more domestic violence calls each day.' [5]
Current law and policy:
The United States of America intends to take the following steps to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls: begin work to reduce domestic violence homicides in up to 12 communities within the United States in 2013 with the goal of evaluating interventions and identifying best practices that can be replicated in other communities across the country; begin development of a U.S. national sexual assault forensic medical examination telemedicine centre in 2013 to improve quality evidence collection following a sexual assault and improve health care for survivors; assess family court structures and processes in domestic violence cases to identify best practices that can be replicated in jurisdictions across the country; work with local police agencies to develop model performance measures, internal guidelines, and quality assurance mechanisms that police agencies can use to improve the overall response to sexual assault crimes and implement the new definition of rape in the Uniform Crime Report; and to continue implementation of the United States National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security and the United States Strategy to Prevent and Respond to Gender-based Violence Globally.
Frontline Services:
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence - https://ncadv.org/ - rglenn@ncadv.org
Futures Without Violence - https://www.futureswithoutviolence.org/ - miwanaka@futureswithoutviolence.org
Chicago Abused Women Association - https://www.cawc.org/
Sources
[1] The World Bank, (1).
[5] Study: Leslie, Emily and Wilson, Riley, Sheltering in Place and Domestic Violence: Evidence from Calls for Service during COVID-19 (May 14, 2020). https://ssrn.com/abstract=3600646 ; http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3600646 ; https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2020/06/11/the-covid-19-pandemic-is-linked-to-a-ten-percent-increase-in-domestic-violence-cases-across-the-country