Domestic Violence: Overview

Introduction

Domestic violence is regarded as a widespread societal problem. Although often assumed to cover only violence between spouses or intimate partners, in many US states laws prohibiting domestic violence include other relationships, such as adult siblings who live together or adults who care for their older parents. Since many cases go unreported, it is difficult to obtain precise figures regarding the scope and extent of the problem. Through the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (based on data from 2016 and 2017, the latest available), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported in 2022 that over half of both female and male victims living in the US had experienced rape by an acquaintance while 39.3 percent and 12.5 percent had experienced rape by an intimate partner in their lifetime, respectively. Additionally, 59.9 percent of female victims and 62.4 percent of male victims of unwanted sexual contact reported that the perpetrator was an acquaintance while 16.8 percent and 9.2 percent, respectively, reported an intimate partner. The survey also indicated that 43.4 percent of female victims reported stalking by current or former intimate partners and acquaintances in their lifetime while 44.2 percent of male victims reported being stalked by current or former intimate partners or acquaintances in their lifetime. In September 2023, the Department of Justice's report on criminal victimization showed that the rate of domestic violence in 2022 was 4.9 per 1,000 persons aged twelve or older, and the rate of intimate partner violence was 3.4 per 1,000 persons aged twelve or older. Domestic violence is also not exclusive to heterosexual relationships. A 2018 World Health Organization analysis found that across 161 countries and territories, more than one-quarter of women aged fifteen to forty-nine had experienced intimate-partner violence.

There are a wide variety of causes of domestic violence, ranging from ancient social traditions that tolerated questionable behavior by men to patterns of psychological abuse that may include threats of violence and the reluctance of victims to seek help.

Just as the causes of domestic violence can be complex, so too are proposed solutions. While some advocates advise more severe punishment for the crime of domestic violence, others focus on relieving what they perceive as the underlying causes of abuse, such as gender role socialization, psychological or financial dependence, and media violence that glorifies abusive relationships.

Understanding the Discussion

Assault and battery: A phrase combining two separate crimes: assault, which is the threat to do violence to another person, and battery, which is the actual violence.

Dating violence: A pattern of controlling, abusive behaviors that takes place between those who are in a dating relationship.

Domestic violence: A pattern of behaviors used by one person in a relationship to control the other.

Elder abuse: A problem similar to intimate-partner violence that involves the abuse, neglect, or mistreatment of people over the age of sixty.

Felony: A serious crime that can lead to a lengthier prison sentence than lesser offenses. Felonies are sometimes associated with crimes as serious as murder or arson, but felonies can also include such offenses as violating a court restraining order.

Paterfamilias: A concept from ancient Roman law that gave the senior male in a family extraordinary powers over other family members. The underlying notion of paterfamilias may support perceptions among some people that males have the right to behave in a dominating manner, including engaging in violence.

Restraining order: In the context of domestic violence, a legal order barring a spouse or partner from any contact with the other person in the relationship. Restraining orders are often requested by victims of domestic violence, and the orders can also serve as the basis for further charges if they are violated.

Background

Physical violence against a spouse or partner is a crime everywhere in the United States. The fact that violence is taking place inside a private residence and involving family members (whether or not they are legally married) may not protect the perpetrator from prosecution, but it does fall within a separate category called "domestic violence." There is no simple answer, however, as to why this type of violence is treated differently than violence between strangers. Possible reasons for this difference include tradition, violence in the media, psychological abuse, and economic dependence, among others.

In antiquity, the most senior male in a family unit had a unique standing, expressed by the Latin word paterfamilias ("father of the family"). Ancient Roman law treated families as micro-societies and the "paterfamilias" as a micro-monarch whose word was law. The paterfamilias literally had the power of life and death over family members. A father had the legal right to let an unwanted child die by exposure or to sell a child into slavery. The permission of the paterfamilias was required before a child could marry, and striking a child or spouse to enforce his will was well within the rights of a paterfamilias. Just as Roman law formed an important basis for modern jurisprudence, some echoes of this ancient tradition remain, such as the idea of asking a father’s permission to marry a daughter.

The United States is, by some measures, an extraordinarily violent society. Many of the most popular films and television programs have featured idealized men who act with violence, which is seen as a legitimate, perhaps even the best, solution to problems. Sociologists and others argue that people can become desensitized and come to believe violence to be acceptable behavior in the world outside entertainment.

If a person strikes their partner in a fit of anger, they can be arrested and charged with assault and battery. But for a wide variety of reasons, including intimidation and fear of retaliation, the victim often finds it difficult to report the offense to authorities or to an agency that might be able to help. It is important to recognize, however, that in a large number of cases, the abuse is not physical in nature. Rather, it takes other forms, including use of social and physical isolation, manipulation of children, verbal and psychological abuse, and economic dependence. In most cases, abusers minimize their actions, deny harm, and blame others, typically the victim, for the abuse.

Psychological abuse usually refers to the intimidation by one person of another; it is a means of exerting control. Threats of physical violence, degrading comments meant to humiliate, and threatening to withhold financial support—for example, when the principal or sole source of income threatens to leave a relationship and household unless they get their way—are all forms of psychological abuse.

In the case of economic dependence, one partner may feel restrained from complaining about domestic abuse if their economic security, and that of any children, depends on the abuser. For many domestic abuse victims, remaining silent is better than pressing charges that may threaten an entire family’s security. The fear of loneliness, rejection, or abandonment often overcomes the fear of physical violence and keeps the victim silent.

Some blend of psychological abuse and the minimization and blaming used by abusers can lead to expressions (and genuine feelings) of denial in instances of domestic violence. Sometimes these feelings come out as, "They didn’t really mean it" or "They won’t do it again," even when there is a well-established pattern of repeated physical attacks. Among LGBTQ people who experience domestic violence, there may be additional pressure to deny what is happening and keep up appearances, lest the community as a whole come under attack. Homophobia may also have already contributed to the couple's isolation from others, exacerbating the victim's lack of social support.

Alcohol and other drugs can play a role in domestic violence because they reduce psychological restraints that might otherwise stop someone from acting violently.

Authorities studying domestic violence often take different approaches to the problem. One of the first and most important of these involves providing safe havens (shelters) for abused spouses. This gives victims a safe place to stay while working out a longer-term arrangement.

Another approach suggests stronger legislation that makes it easier to prosecute abusive spouses, with or without the cooperation of victims, or to impose more severe punishments for those who are convicted. Many states have moved to mandatory arrest policies, whereby the police are required to make an arrest whenever there are grounds to do so on a domestic violence call.

In 2014, the Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of United States v. Castleman elucidated the definition of "physical force" in terms of domestic violence and upheld bans on firearm possession by individuals convicted of the misdemeanor crime of domestic abuse. While gun-rights activists reacted negatively to this result, those advocating for survivors of domestic violence supported the decision’s ability to protect victims from an increased risk of death. In June 2016, the US Supreme Court decided 6–2 in Voisine v. United States that reckless abusive conduct is also a misdemeanor crime that prohibits future gun ownership, just as intentional abuse is.

At the congressional level, the landmark Violence against Women Act (VAWA) of 1994 provided funds for shelters, legal aid, and crisis interventions, among other efforts to reduce domestic violence. Reauthorized and expanded in 2000 and 2013, it was allowed to lapse in 2018. Later, in 2022, a VAWA reauthorization bill was signed into law by President Joe Biden upon a bipartisan agreement for its inclusion in that year's fiscal spending package. This bill provided for first responders' training in victim-centered investigative techniques while expanding programs and services, particularly for survivors belonging to underserved communities.

Still others have emphasized that greater arrest and prosecution, as well as providing services to victims, will never end domestic violence because they are reactive, not preventive. Many states have begun to add prevention programs, which generally include several elements. Typical prevention efforts involve training and education for persons in certain professions, school-based programs designed to discuss healthy relationships, and efforts to reach persons involved in religious communities. For LGBTQ individuals, inclusion in outreach and prevention efforts and diversity training for law enforcement are seen as major avenues for improvement in the rates of domestic abuse and reporting.

In the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, authorities also sought to reduce recidivism by treating those who commit domestic abuse. By the early 2020s, an estimated 2,500 batterer intervention programs, employing various counseling methods, were in operation across the United States. Their effectiveness remained a subject of much debate, however, particularly in the absence of other, better solutions to stopping the cycle of violence.

Domestic Violence Today

Policy decisions can also exacerbate the problem of domestic violence. Following the election of President Donald Trump in 2016, concerns grew over whether immigrants in the country—including legal residents and unauthorized migrants—would be less inclined to report instances of domestic abuse due to the administration's increasingly strict policies on immigration and deportation. Indeed, deportations, courthouse arrests and home raids, and alleged abusers' increased reporting of their accusers' immigration status were linked to a decrease in domestic-violence case filings by immigrants. At the same time, the Trump administration told immigration courts to end asylum for people fleeing domestic violence; the administration of Trump's successor, Biden, launched reviews of that policy as well as other immigration policies.

To curb the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic of the early 2020s, governments imposed widespread and sometimes lengthy stay-at-home orders as well as restrictions on businesses and schools. Hotlines and nonprofits anticipated domestic violence would increase amid the stresses and strains of that period. Although demand for such services dropped by more than half in some places, police in about two dozen major cities saw an increase of as much as 20 percent in domestic-violence calls early in the pandemic. Among the pandemic-related factors thought to exacerbate the problem were worsened household financial situations, reduced access to alternative housing options like shelters, higher parental strain due to the lack of child care and schooling, fewer interactions with mandated reporters, procedural barriers to police reporting and restraining order processing, reduced access to health care providers, and limited privacy in communications and/or reliable internet access.

Included in the Safer Communities Act of 2022, passed by both houses of Congress, was a provision adding perpetrators of misdemeanor domestic violence in dating relationships into the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, meaning that they would be prevented from buying or possessing a firearm for at least five years. At the same time, the Supreme Court's June 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, ending federally legalized abortion, drew concerns from domestic violence activists over the loss of reproductive health choices for those who become pregnant as a result of an act of domestic violence perpetrated against them. Because the legality of abortions was subsequently left in the hands of individual states, it was predicted that a large number of those states would move to heavily restrict or even totally ban abortions. Many worried that marginalized populations, including immigrants and people of color, who had already faced more limited abortion resources would struggle even more with any travel requirements placed on abortion access. Additionally, there was some fear that any new laws criminalizing the receipt of abortion services could negatively impact those at various levels of immigration. That same month, many activists for American Indian rights condemned the Supreme Court's ruling in Oklahoma v. Castro-Huerta, which granted states the jurisdictional ability to prosecute individuals who do not belong to the American Indian community themselves who have committed crimes against members of American Indian tribes on reservation land. In cases of domestic violence occurring on tribal lands, many felt that this ruling jeopardized American Indian communities' sovereignty in terms of prosecuting these crimes according to their own values and traditions.

The Supreme Court's 2022 Dobbs decision continued to impact domestic abuse survivors negatively. Critics of the ruling noted that by allowing individual states to ban or restrict abortion, the ruling had effectively fueled a rise in the incidence of reproductive coercion—a type of abuse in which an abuser keeps a spouse pregnant or uses their children to maintain control in the relationship—in states that had also banned divorce while pregnant. By 2024, five states prohibited married couples from divorcing during a pregnancy. In eight other states, courts were likely to make married couples wait until after the end of a pregnancy before granting a divorce. In 2024, Missouri state representative Ashley Aune, a Democrat, introduced HB 2402, a bill that if passed would allow courts to grant pregnant people a divorce or legal separation.

At the same time, 2024 saw the Supreme Court uphold the law prohibiting ownership of firearms by anyone subject to a restraining order for domestic violence. This ruling came despite a 2022 decision in which the court had expanded gun rights, which commentators noted suggested the court's view on the dangers of gun possession amid threats of domestic violence.

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