By: Cook County Attorney Molly Hicken

Across multiple county departments including the Sheriff's Office, the County Attorney's Office, and Public Health and Human Services, our work is in response to a pervasive problem that every community faces: domestic violence. October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a great time to explore this important topic and the individual and community-wide impacts of domestic violence.

Also referred to as "relationship abuse” or “Intimate Partner Violence,” domestic violence is a problem that crosses boundaries of class, race, and education. It also touches even those who have never been exposed to it personally. Domestic violence results in well-documented economic losses that affect everyone. The financial losses come from the burden that domestic violence imposes on the workforce, medical systems, and law enforcement. A 2004 study documented a loss of $11.7 billion dollars (current value) in this country related to "intimate partner violence" including health costs and productivity losses.

Responses to the 2016 Minnesota Crime Victim Survey indicated a 50% rise since 2010 in those respondents reporting physical assault by a current or former intimate partner within the previous year. Just seven percent of these respondents had sought medical attention for the most recent incident. Seventy percent of those victimized by IPV reported that minor children witnessed the most recent violent episode. For victims of domestic abuse, the decision of whether to report the violence they experience is often complicated by many factors (shared finances, housing, children, fear of increased violence, etc.).

Exposure to domestic violence falls within the definition of "child maltreatment." Children who grow up in a home environment in which they are exposed to violence against a parent are victims, too. Domestic violence-related deaths leave children without parents. Long-term childhood exposure to violence can cause behavioral, psychological, and physical problems; academic failure; alcohol and substance use; delinquent acts; and a path to adult criminality.

Domestic violence is known to worsen over time, ending, for some victims, in death. The statistics indicate that the time during which victims are most at risk is during separation from their abusive partner or shortly thereafter. The Intimate Partner Homicide Report is a three-decade-long project of Violence Free Minnesota (formerly the Minnesota Coalition for Battered Women), with the aim of documenting every person killed by a current or former intimate partner. Certain "lethality factors" are present in a significant number of cases of domestic violence-related homicide, including: previous threats to kill the victim, an abuser's access to firearms, an abuser's history of violence, and the victim's attempts to leave the abuser (Intimate Partner Homicide Report 2022).

In 2022, 24 people were killed in this state due to domestic violence. According to the Report, at least 20 women and one man died from intimate partner violence, with at least three bystanders or intervenors killed. In 2021, 20 women died from intimate partner violence and six bystanders/intervenors were killed.

Native American women experience a disproportionate level of domestic violence as compared to other groups. In a 2010 study by the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, indigenous women were found to be twice as likely as any other racial group to be raped or sexually assaulted. Eighty-four percent reported experiencing violence in their life. In 2021 at the recommendation of the Task Force on Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women, the State of Minnesota created the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office. The MMIR Office aims to reduce and end violence against all indigenous people in Minnesota. Among other business, the Office supports families of the missing, facilitates communication between law enforcement and the family of the missing or murdered person, and presents education on topics related to MMIR.

Domestic violence has a lasting negative impact on society. It is a serious problem that everyone should feel a responsibility for ending. Please help us answer that call.

For more information on resources to prevent and address domestic violence in Cook County, please contact the Violence Prevention Center at (218) 387-1262. Trained advocates can be reached 24/7 by calling (218) 387-1237.  Domestic Violence Advocate services are also available through Grand Portage Human Services by calling (218) 475-2453.

To report concerns about child abuse or sexual abuse of a minor, contact Cook County Public Health and Human Services at (218) 387-3620. If anyone is in immediate risk of harm, please contact law enforcement or dial 911.

County Connections is a column on timely topics and service information from your Cook County government. Cook County – Supporting Community Through Quality Public Service.