Domestic Violence - It's a Business Issue

Domestic Violence - It's a Business Issue

Domestic violence is an important business issue that cannot be ignored. The workplace is where many people facing domestic violence spend at least eight hours a day. It's an ideal place for them to get help and support.

Between 30,000 and 40,000 incidents of on-the-job violence every year involve cases in which victims know their attackers intimately. (Bureau of Justice Statistics at the US Department of Justice).

Domestic violence costs employers as much as $5 billion a year in lost days of work and reduced productivity. ( Bureau of National Affairs).

71% of human resources and security personnel surveyed had an incident of domestic violence occurring on company property. (Issac, Nancy E., Sc. D., Corporate Sector Response to Domestic Violence, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University School of Public Health, 1997)

94% of corporate security directors rank domestic violence as a high security problem at their company. (Solomon, Charlene Marmer, "Talking Frankly about Domestic Violence," Personnel Journal, April 1995)

Guns and domestic violence combine to make a lethal combination, injuring and killing women every day. A gun is the most commonly used weapon in domestic homicide. In 1998, more than four times as many women were murdered with a gun by their husbands or intimate partners than were killed by strangers' guns, knives or other weapons combined. (Violence Policy Center; When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 1998 Homicide Data: Females Murdered by Males in Single Victim/Single Offender Incidents; 2000).

Nearly one-third of all women murdered in the United States in 1998 were killed by a current or former intimate partner. Guns were used in almost two-thirds of these domestic homicides. (U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics; Homicide Trends in the U.S. ,Intimate Partner Homicide; 2001)

In 1998, 808 women were shot and killed by their husbands or intimate acquaintances. (U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics; Homicide Trends in the U.S., Intimate Partner Homicide; 2001)

The presence of a gun dramatically increases the chance that a domestic violence incident will end in murder. One study found that, in Atlanta, family and intimate assault involving guns were 12 times more likely to result in death than family and intimate assaults not involving guns. (L. Saltzman, et.al; Weapon Involvement and Injury Outcomes in Family and Intimate Assaults; 1992)

In 1998, for every time a woman used a handgun to kill an intimate partner in self-defense, 83 women were murdered by an intimate partner with a handgun. (Violence Policy Center; When Men Murder Women: An Analysis of 1998 Homicide Data: Females Murdered by Males in Single Victim/Single Offender Incidents; 2000)

Domestic violence misdemeanor convictions and restraining orders were the second most common reason for denials of handgun purchase applications. (U.S. Department of Justice Bureau of Justice Statistics; A National Estimate: Presale Handgun Checks, the Brady Interim Period, 1994-98; 1999)

It is crucial that domestic abuse be seen as a serious, recognizable, and preventable problem, like thousands of other workplace health and safety issues that affect a business bottom line.