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• Estimates range from 960,000 incidents of violence against a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend per year to 4 million women who are physically abused by their husbands or live-in partners per year. — Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, U.S. Department of Justice, March, 1998.
  
  
• A woman is beaten every 15 seconds. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Report to the nation on Crime and Justice. The Data. Washington DC Office of Justice Program, US Dept. of Justice. Oct 1983)
  
  
• Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between ages 15 and 44 in the united States - more than car accidents, muggings, and rapes combined. (Uniform Crime Reports, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1991)
  
  
• Battered women are more likely to suffer miscarriages and to give birth to babies with low birth weights. (Surgeon General, United States, 1992)
  
  
• Sixty-three percent of the young men between the ages of 11 and 20 who are serving time for homicide have killed their mother's abuser. (March of Dimes, 1992)
  

• While women are less likely than men to be victims of violent crimes overall, women are 5 to 8 times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate partner. — Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, U.S. Department of Justice, March, 1998.

• Violence by an intimate accounts for about 21% of violent crime experienced by women and about 2 % of the violence experienced by men.— Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, U.S. Department of Justice, March, 1998.

• In 92% of all domestic violence incidents, crimes are committed by men against women. — Violence Against Women, Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice, January, 1994.

• Of women who reported being raped and/or physically assaulted since the age of 18, three quarters (76 percent) were victimized by a current or former husband, cohabitating partner, date or boyfriend. — Prevalence Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, U.S. Department of Justice, November, 1998.

• In 1994, women separated from their spouses had a victimization rate 1 1/2 times higher than separated men, divorced men, or divorced women. — Sex Differences in Violent Victimization, 1994, U.S. Department of Justice, September, 1997.

• In 1996, among all female murder victims in the U.S., 30% were slain by their husbands or boyfriends. — Uniform Crime Reports of the U.S. 1996, Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1996.

• 31,260 women were murdered by an intimate from 1976-1996. — Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, U.S. Department of Justice, March, 1998.

• Studies show that child abuse occurs in 30-60% of family violence cases that involve families with children.
  — "The overlap between child maltreatment and woman battering." J.L. Edleson, Violence Against Women, February, 1999.

• A child’s exposure to the father abusing the mother is the strongest risk factor for transmitting violent behavior from one generation to the next. — Report of the American Psychological Association Presidential Task Force on Violence and the Family, APA, 1996.

• Forty percent of teenage girls age 14 to 17 report knowing someone their age who has been hit or beaten by a boyfriend. — Children Now/Kaiser Permanente poll, December, 1995.

• The U.S. Department of Justice estimates that 1.4 million adults are stalked annually in the United States. — Prevalence Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women: Findings from the National Violence Against Women Survey, U.S. Department of Justice, November, 1998.

• Females accounted for 39% of the hospital emergency department visits for violence-related injuries in 1994 but 84% of the persons treated for injuries inflicted by intimates.— Violence by Intimates: Analysis of Data on Crimes by Current or Former Spouses, Boyfriends, and Girlfriends, U.S. Department of Justice, March, 1998.

• Family violence costs the nation from $5 to $10 billion annually in medical expenses, police and court costs, shelters and foster care, sick leave, absenteeism, and non-productivity. — Medical News, American Medical Association, January, 1992.

• Husbands and boyfriends commit 13,000 acts of violence against women in the workplace every year.— Violence and Theft in the Workplace, U.S. Department of Justice, July, 1994.

• The majority of welfare recipients have experienced domestic abuse in their adult lives and a high percentage are currently abused. — Trapped by Poverty, Trapped by Abuse: New Evidence Documenting the Relationship Between Domestic Violence and Welfare, The Taylor Institute, April, 1997.

Some people you could talk to might be:

• police officer

• a member of your family

• a teacher or school counselor

• your friends or their parents

• your priest, minister or rabbi

• a doctor or nurse

• people in court- the district attorney or victim witness advocate

• staff at Tri-County Council or your local battered women's program

• another adult you trust
  
  

  -These facts are from Jane Doe Inc.