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Domestic violence, increasingly known as intimate partner violence, is defined as physical, sexual or emotional abuse, as well as threats. The federal Centers for Disease Control estimates that 4.8 million women and 2.9 million men are subjected to physical or sexual abuse by intimate partners in America each year. The CDC counted more than 1,500 domestic violence deaths in 2004, three-quarters of them women. Yet intimate partner violence has been on a steady decline since the late 1970s. Most recently, a federal Bureau of Justice Statistics study (authored by Shannan Catalano, whose contact information is included in the BJS source listing below) noted a 50 percent decline between 1993 and 2004. Some have cited the 1994 Violence Against Women Act and better training by law enforcers. Richard Rosenfeld of the University of Missouri-St. Louis (listed among the Academics and Experts below) was co-author of a study that analyzed the decline.
The annual H.F. Guggenheim symposium has emerged as a key date on the nation’s calendar of criminal justice events, primarily because it is the only conference that brings together a select audience of journalists, academics, practitioners and policy makers to discuss current issues of criminal justice facing the nation. You are cordially invited to join [...]
Commission on Domestic Violence
Washington, D.C.
Robin Runge, director
(202) 662-1000
http://www.abanet.org/domviol/
The commission provides support to attorneys representing victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking, including such things as research assistance, model pleadings and access to experts.
National Advisory Council on Violence and Abuse
Chicago
(312) 464-4430
Media inquiries: http://webapps.ama-assn.org/contactus/contactus-submit.do
http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/3242.html
The council provides guidance to the AMA on healthcare issues related to violence and abuse, including training physicians to recognize abuse and intervene.
Boston
(617) 338-2350
asiandv@atask.org
www.atask.org
Founded in 1994, the task force says it operates New England’s only multilingual emergency shelter and services for Asian victims of domestic violence and their children. The shelter program has served as a model for many others.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 387-4848
www.Ayuda.com
Focused on metropolitan Washington, Ayudo gives multi-lingual legal and social assistance for low-income Latinos and foreign-born persons in immigration, human trafficking, domestic violence and family law. Its services include assistance to victims of domestic violence.
Washington, D.C.
(202) 307-0765
This web page of the BJS, a bureau of the U.S. Department of Justice, includes links to a number of BJS reports, backgrounders and statistics on intimate partner violence, including victim and offender characteristics and trends. A 2006 BJS study concluded that intimate partner violence had declined 50 percent from 1993 to 2004. [...]
Boston
Betsy McAlister Groves, director
(617) 414-4244
betsy.groves@bmc.org
The project, begun in 1992, is a counseling, advocacy and outreach initiative that focuses on children who are hidden victims of violence–bystanders to community and domestic violence. It also offers training for health care professionals, police, educators and social service professionals who confront issues of children who witness violence.
Atlanta
Glen Nowak, media relations chief
(404) 639-3286
Media request form: http://www.cdc.gov/media/feedback.htm
The CDC, part of the federal Department of Health and Human Services, compiles and analyzes a vast pool of information on intimate partner violence at its Website. The CDC, which employs 14,000 people in 40 countries and had a 2008 budget of $8.8 billion, has since 2002 [...]
Washington, D.C.
tgest@sas.upenn.edu
This national association of reporters and editors has published an online primer on covering domestic violence—written by Sarah Huntley–that includes a storehouse of information on that subject.
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore
(410) 659-6300
endvaw@jhuccp.org
This information and resources clearinghouse Web site is affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
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The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence maintains this state-by-state directory of intimate partner coalitions, including phone, email and website contacts.
This links to a backgrounder on Domestic Violence Courts, an innovation begun in New York in 1996. Some 300 of the specialized courts are now in operation across the nation.
San Francisco
Lisa Lederer, media contact
(202) 371-1999
lisa@prsolutionsdc.com
For more than 20 years this group has focused on preventing violence against women and children and supporting its victims. It focuses on public policy and has separate programs on—among other things–violence against children, teens and immigrant women, as well as workplace violence. Its website includes a footnoted fact sheet [...]
Washington, D.C.
Liz Joyce, media coordinator
(202) 467-8700
jbaldassari@ncvc.org
The center offers resources on teen dating violence, violence against women and stalking. It says it can offer the media expert analysis and interviews on those and other areas of intimate partner violence.
Denver
Rita Smith, executive director
(303) 839-1852
mainoffice@ncadv.org
Founded 30 years ago, this group is based in Denver, with a public policy center in Washington. It focuses on forming coalitions, supporting community-based shelters for women and children, public education and policy and legislative initiatives. The group publishes an annual directory of shelters and safe homes, available for purchase through [...]
Washington, D.C.
This service is a collection of clearinghouses supporting all bureaus of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs: the National Institute of Justice, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, the Bureau of Justice Statistics, the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the Office for Victims of Crime and the OJP Program Offices. [...]
Austin, Texas
Retha Fielding, media contact
(512) 794-1133
Operated by the Texas Council on Family Violence, this 24-hour hotline marked its 10th anniversary in 2007. It offers domestic violence emergency counseling and referrals in 170 languages.
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Enola, Pa.
(877) 739-3895
resources@nsvrc.org
This center near Harrisburg opened in 2000 as a national information and resource hub on sexual violence. It is funded through the federal Centers for Disease Control division of violence prevention. The center’s website offers vast resources on sexual violence, including statistics, research, position statements, statutes and program and prevention information.
Alexandria, Va.
Christine Galbraith, domestic violence coordinator
(800) 424-7827
nsamail@sheriffs.org
This organization includes 3,000 elected sheriffs among its membership of 22,000. It has coordinators for a number of areas of special interest in law enforcement, including domestic violence.
The website of this advocacy organization, which works on behalf of abused women and children, includes a state-by-state listing of domestic violence programs as well as locations of shelters.
