Nonlethal Intimate Partner Violence Against Women: A Comparison of Three Age Cohorts

• NCJ Number: 203207
• Journal: Violence Against Women Volume: 9 Issue: 12 Dated: December 2003 Pages: 1417-1428
• Author(s): Callie Rennison; Michael R. Rand
• Date Published: December 2003
• Length: 12 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article presents estimates of the prevalence and incidence of nonlethal intimate partner violence (IPV) from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) for 1993 to 2001.

Abstract

NCVS response rates are high (between 89 percent and 92 percent annually), and they provide information on incidents both reported and unreported to the police, as well as incident-level information. An intimate partner is defined as a current or former spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend. Violence against an intimate partner included threatened, attempted, and completed rape; sexual assault; robbery; aggravated assault; and simple assault. Across the 9-year period examined, approximately 7,450,260 IPV victimizations were committed against females in the United States, for an average of approximately 828,000 victimizations by an intimate partner per year. Data indicate that the risk of becoming a victim of IPV, like the risk of violent victimization in general, is related to the female victim's age. Females aged 12 to 24 were victimized by an intimate at the highest rate (12.3 victimizations per 1,000), and females aged 55 or older were victimized by an intimate at the lowest rate (0.44 victimizations per 1,000). Mature females who were separated from an intimate partner were victimized at rates significantly higher than females in other marital categories. Victims of IPV, regardless of age, were as likely to be injured during the violence as they were to escape injury. Injured victims were significantly more likely to describe their injuries as minor, including bruises, scratches, and chipped teeth (92 percent). Three percent of all injuries were described as serious. The data presented thus show that despite lower incidence rates and despite inherent difficulties in measuring such crime, for many mature and elderly women, IPV remains a problem in their lives. One of the major contributions of this research may be to demonstrate the inadequacy of knowledge about the extent of IPV against older women. 4 tables, 3 notes, and 2 references