Domestic Violence in Chicago
Every 6 minutes in Chicago, the police take a domestic violence related call. In the first three months of 2006, four women were brutally murdered by their abusers.
---Chicago Police Department Quarterly Domestic Violence Statistical Summary, YTD March 2006
From January through March, 2006, police made 1,835 arrests for domestic battery and bodily harm. That's 20 arrests a day. Battery and assault accounted for nearly 80 percent of all domestic crimes reported.
---Chicago Police Department Quarterly Domestic Violence Statistical Summary, YTD March 2006
In a 2001 survey of women who had experienced violence in the past year, almost half (48 percent) suffered at least one incident that researchers defined as "severe or life threatening," i.e., permanent injury, being completely “beaten up,” being choked or burned, internal injury, head injury, broken bones, or a threat or attack with a weapon.
---Chicago Women's Health Risk Study, Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, 2004
A landmark 1995 study found that more than a third of the women seen at public health clinics had been physically abused at least once in their lives and 19 percent had been physically abused within the last year.
---Chicago Department of Public Health, The Prevalence of Domestic Violence Among Women Attending Chicago Department of Public Health Clinics
The most dangerous time time in the life of a battered woman is when she attempts to leave her abuser.
---National Resource Center on Domestic Violence
In 1994, more than 10,000 domestic violence victims were turned away from services. About 10 percent of these victims choose to become homeless rather than risk further injury or death by remaining in their own home.
---Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority, 1994