Stats on domestic violence against men

[buckingfrolicks]

just had a massive row with DS, 20, about male victims of domestic violence. He cited the 2017 ONS survey data - extensively reported in the media - that 40 per cent of men experience domestic violence.

What I am not clear about, and which I cannot tell from the ONS data, is whether these men were victims of female partners, or of male partners, which would make quite a difference to his position that 'women are almost as violent as men'.

Can anyone shed any light on these stats? Maybe I'm just an old bigoted feminazi (thanks, son, that was kind...) but I find it very hard to swallow that 40% of men are victims of domestic violence. Please help - he refuses to debate with me unless I can provide 'hard evidence'.

I don't know about the latest stats but this is a good piece about the reporting of domestic violence against men

Did your son mean 40% of domestic violence victims are male, which is a different thing to 40% of men being victims of domestic violence?

And were you specifically arguing about domestic physical violence, or abuse which also includes non-physical behaviour?

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/domesticabuseinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2017

See section 4 for prevalence of domestic abuse last year, which does show about 37.5% of the yearly reported domestic abuse (not just physical violence) incidents were male victims. This is a self-reported crime survey rather than police recorded incidents.

Section 5 has the police incident records.

See section 6 for a breakdown of domestic homicides though, which are male-dominated crimes, in which 70% of adult victims are female, with 97% of those deaths caused by males. 66% of the male deaths were caused by a male. So just under 90% of the deaths were caused by males.

I'm certainly not downplaying the abuse men suffer as clearly they do suffer it, but the fatal crimes are male dominated. I agree it would be informative to know how the other violent v non-violent forms of abuse divide up and who is perpetrating the incidents.

In most of these surveys the perps are fathers, brothers, and sons of the elderly.

The thing is - it’s still MEN commuting to violence in the first place.

If you wanted to throw the insults back, he's being a heteronormative bigot to assume that if a man is attacked, it's by a woman.....

Karen Ingala Smith deals with this well, links below to. Real down of domestic abuse by sex of victim and perpetrator and also homicide by sex of victim and perpetrator. Blind Yeo to a certain extent domedtic abuse against men needs downplaying, nothing wrong with that. Doesn’t mean they don’t have a right to support but the bigger problem by a long stretch is violence committed by men against
women and children and also against other Men.
kareningalasmith.com/2013/04/29/this-thing-about-male-victims/
kareningalasmith.com/2016/09/01/intimate-partner-and-domestic-violence-homicides-sex-differences-april-2012-march-2015-3-years/

This was explained to me by a (male) DV trainer on a course. Basically DV is a pattern of behaviour, one off incidents of violence aren't considered DV according to the true definition. Women who report DV experience DV - there is almost always a pattern of abusive behaviour. Well you know what DV is.
However for statistics any incident of reported violence by an intimate partner is recorded as DV. This includes women who hit or slap their partners once, often after experiencing prolonged DA of some kind or after discovering infidelity or whatever.
This is how the stats are being skewed. That's not to say that there are no genuine male victims of DV perpetrated by women but it is honestly very rare. I see a lot of people's relationships intimately and women are abusive towards children but almost never towards male partners. Abuse is an exertion of power and control. The dynamics in dysfunctional families almost always go man > woman > child > younger child

Introduce him to the Karen Ingalia Smith site starting with the link wrappedup posted.

Someone above has already covered how domestic ABUSE statistics differ from domestic VIOLENCE which skews the figures and the pattern of abuse that characterises DV but for the 2016 figures I also noted these discrepancies (haven't yet checked 2017 figures):
For men & women DV included:

• Violence from a partner or ex partner
• Violence from family members including parents, children and siblings

For men only DV also included:

• Violence from the ex partner of their current partner
• Violence from the current partner of their ex partner

Now whether we assume same sex or opposite sex couples in these scenarios, clearly both of the men only inclusions must be perpetrated by men. And whilst it can be related to domestic violence, it is clear that this inflates victims of male violence and supports a false narrative that there are large numbers of men being attacked by women.

I have asked why there was no record of sex of perpetrator in the statistics but response from ONS was that police forces didn't collect it and that the inconsistency in the definition of domestic violence and also hate crimes across different forces also ought to make us pause for consideration.

oh that's fab thank you - just what I was after.

It's appalling how the ONS has presented those stats; simply invites '40% of men are victims of domestic violence' headlines which are not true.

Really appreciate the fast and helpful responses, thank you :)

Also, while female victims of DV live in fear of their lives, men dont.

DV stats UK;
There were a total of 432 domestic homicides recorded by the police in England and Wales, between April 2012 and March 2015. This represents 30% of all homicides where the victim was aged 16 and over during this time period. Of these 432 domestic homicides, 27% of victims were male (117) and 73% of victims were female (315). This contrasts with the gender breakdown of victims for all homicides, where 67% of victims were male (956) and 33% of victims were female (461).

The majority (97%) of the female domestic homicide victims were killed by a male suspect, compared with 89% of female victims of non-domestic homicides. Among men there was a bigger difference between domestic and non-domestic homicides, with around a third (32%) of domestic homicide victims being killed by a female suspect, compared with only 5% of victims of non-domestic homicides.

Over three-quarters (77%) of female domestic homicide victims were killed by a partner or ex-partner, with the remaining 23% killed by a family member. For male homicides, there was a much more even split, with around a half (51%) of victims killed by a partner or ex-partner and the other half (49%) killed by a family member (see Appendix Table 2.10 of the Focus On Violent Crime and Sexual Offences, year ending March 2015).

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/domesticabuseinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2016#prevalence-of-domestic-abuse-from-the-crime-survey-for-england-and-wales

From Refuge;
Four times as many women as men are killed by a current or former partner.
Research shows that the violence experienced by women is different in nature, severity and consequence from the violence experience by men.

The intensity and severity of violence used by men is more extreme and more likely to include physical violence, threats and harassment. Female victims of domestic violence experience more serious psychological consequences than male victims and are much more likely to feel afraid of their partners. Women are 4 times as likely to experience potentially lethal violence and five times as likely to report that they feared for their lives.
www.refuge.org.uk/files/Statistics-domestic-violence-and-gender.pdf