Stats on violence from ICVP/ CDC

Illinois Center for Violence Prevention

From the Desk of the Executive Director

For those of us whose daily personal and professional efforts are creating a safe environment for every stage of life we are fully aware of the numbers.  We see the data; we analyze the data; and to try to find the answers within the data.  The statistics tell us that we still have much work in front of us.

The following statistics are just a small representation of the statistcal data available through the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website at:  http://www.cdc.gov/ViolencePrevention/index.html.

Nationally, child protective service agencies report that 772,000 children were victims of maltreatment; 71% victims of child neglect, 16% victims of physical abuse, 9% victims of sexual abuse, 7% victims of emotional abuse (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2008).

As the population continues to age, fifteen years ago the statistics showed that over one half a million persons age 60 and older were the victims of elder abuse, neglect, and/or self-neglect in domestic settings (National Center on elder Abuse, 1998).

Each year, women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner related physical assaults and rapes, and men are the victims of about 2.9 million like assaults (Tjaden and Thoennes, 2000).

Twenty-five percent of adolescents report either verbal, physical, emotional or sexual abuse from a partner each year.

The results of a nationally represented survey were presented in a 2007 study that revealed 60.4% of female and 69.2% of male victims were first raped before age 18; 25.5% of females were first raped before age 12, and 34.9% were first raped between the ages of 12-17; 41% of males were first raped before age 12, and 27.9% were first raped between the ages of 12-17.

Also, in 2007 suicide was the eleventh leading cause of death for all ages with 34,000 suicides in the United States equating to one suicide every 15 minutes.

These statistics are just a minute portion of the story.  The data continues to drive us forward and make us even more resolute.  The Illinois Center for Violence Prevention continues to provide high quality capacity building tools-both evidenced based and best practices models-to providers statewide.  We work collaboratively because we are unified in our objective-to make statistics like these a thing of the past.

Gregory Jackson

Executive Director