It exceeds rapes, muggings and auto accidents combined. Domestic violence accounts for twenty percent of all medical visits by women, and twenty-five percent of all emergency room cases. In Pennsylvania, an estimated 800,000 women per year are assaulted by their current or former partners. There is a fifty percent chance a woman will receive at least one serious beating from her partner in her lifetime. Twenty-five percent of victims are first battered during pregnancy, most by blows to the stomach.
Violence takes many forms Domestic violence is a pattern of controlling behaviors.
Anyone can be abusive. Anyone can be abused. Domestic violence cuts across all racial, ethnic, gender, educational, religious, and socio-economic lines. Domestic violence tends to progress over time, increasing in frequency, severity and lethality. The violence is unlikely to stop without intervention.