Why It Matters:

The societal costs of intimate partner violence are staggering.

  • Costs of intimate partner violence (IPV) against women alone in 1995 exceeded an estimated $5.8 billion, including nearly $4.1 billion in the direct costs of medical and mental health care and nearly $1.8 billion in the indirect costs of lost productivity. Note this data is considered an underestimate because the costs associated with the criminal justice system were not included in this study. (CDC, 2016)
  • The link between domestic violence and mass shootings has recently been observed: 1 An analysis of FBI data on mass shootings from 2009 to 2015 by the gun control group for Gun found that almost 60% of the cases included a spouse, former spouse or other family member among the victims and that 16 percent of the attackers had previously been charged with domestic violence. 2) In an analysis done by the New York Times, 31% of mass shooting deaths in 2015 were related to domestic violence.
  • When one examines the costs of domestic violence, it important to look at the youngest victims. According to a 2011 study by Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, more than 5 million children are exposed to intimate partner violence in one year, with nearly a million witnessing severe physical violence. Lifetime exposure rates to intimate partner physical violence were 17.9% or about 13.6 million children. The effects are long-term and devastating.