October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Because a cause of housing instability is domestic violence, mostly impacting women and children, I want to call attention to Domestic Violence Awareness Month.  From President Obama's proclamation:

Ending domestic violence requires a collaborative effort involving every part of our society.  Our law enforcement and justice system must work to hold offenders accountable and to protect victims and their children.  Business, faith, and community leaders, as well as educators, health care providers, and human service professionals, also have a role to play in communicating that domestic violence is always unacceptable.  As a Nation, we must endeavor to protect survivors, bring offenders to justice, and change attitudes that support such violence.  I encourage victims, their loved ones, and concerned citizens to call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1 800-799-SAFE or visit:  http://www.thehotline.org/.

Wisconsin created a plan to end domestic violence, Forward To A Domestic Violence-Free Wisconsin notes that domestic violence is defined as:

the threatened or actual use of physical force or power against another person, against oneself, or against a group or community which either results in, or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death or deprivation.

The statewide plan notes that Wisconsin District Attorneys handled over 25,531 domestic violence incidents in 2006,and there were 19,333 incidents of abuse of older people or vulnerable people.  Domestic violence organizations fielded 75,922 crisis calls, and served 50,652 individuals in programs in 2006.  Clearly this is not acceptable.  Beside the human cost, particularly on children who are victims or witnesses, this is a drain on our resources as a society in responses (police, health & legal) to those incidents, as well as lost work and school time.

The plan also cited an estimate from the The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the annual cost of domestic violence was $5.8 billion nation-wide in 1995 (adjusted for inflation to $7.8 billion in 2007).

The strategies that Wisconsin is taking are:

1. Strengthen and spread shared commitment to primary prevention of domestic violence.
2. Engage diverse institutional partners and allies in the primary prevention of domestic violence.
3. Conduct and use surveillance, evaluation and research to inform the development and continuous improvement of primary prevention policies and programs.
4. Catalyze action at every level of government.

Know the resources in your community.  Waukesha's resources can be found here.