Using National Data to Inform Our Understanding of Family and Intimate Partner Violence Victimization: A Review of a Decade of Innovation

Abstract

This review summarizes developments over the past decade in national data sources that can further our understanding of intimate partner and family violence. Particular attention is given to recent improvements in the National Crime Victimization Survey and Uniform Crime Reporting Program’s National Incident-Based Reporting System as well as to features of the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey. Over the past 10 years, these data sources have broadened their collection in areas such as victim demographics, disclosure and access to services. This information can support the research necessary to better respond to victims of intimate partner and family violence.

Keywords

crime measurement intimate partner violence family violence victimization

Introduction

Over the past 50 years, research and policy attention have grown exponentially with regard to intimate partner and family violence. This emphasis encouraged the development of a large number of data sources to study the causes and consequences of victimization experienced in these intimate and domestic relationships. The purpose of our article is to summarize ongoing national data sources collected by the federal government with a specific focus on the improvements over the past decade that can help inform research in this area. We devote particular attention to the innovations in the area of intimate partner violence, especially the expansion to cover understudied victims. We also examine recent changes to inform family violence, principally that directed at vulnerable children and seniors; and here we identify a few additional studies that focus on children.¹ We conclude our review by considering the need to incorporate these new data opportunities into future intimate partner and family violence policy.

Background

A review of intimate partner and family violence data changes over the past 10 years can be guided by either theoretical or practical concerns. Because theoretical issues are the focus of other papers in this special issue, we frame our review by relying on the practical policy discussion provided by the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC, 2013) in Vision 21: Transforming Victim Services. This report gives a comprehensive review of the state of victim services, identification of service gaps, a roadmap for future research on victimization, and potential policy needs to inform responses to victimization. Of particular interest for our purposes, the report identifies understudied issues and underserved victims as well as recommendations for data improvements and research infrastructure necessary for improving evidence-based programs for victims of all types of crime. Since our discussion draws upon the need both for basic knowledge about understudied issues and support of underserved victims, we provide a brief overview of these concerns.

One of the core research issues discussed in the OVC report concerns the need for basic monitoring of who is victimized, in what way, and by whom—all of which are essential features for defining and measuring intimate partner and family violence. In addition to this basic monitoring, the disruption and prevention of ongoing violence, such as intimate and family violence, often requires intervention by officials such as police who can apprehend offenders and service providers who can direct support for victims. Information is needed to regularly monitor which victims report violence to the police and whether rates of reporting intimate partner and family violence change over time. Information on victim services has been woefully lacking across the board as well as with regard to access, availability, unmet needs and satisfaction. Another area in need of basic research is the connection between law enforcement and victim services as each can influence contact with the other. This relationship becomes complicated in the context of intimate partner and family violence as these victims most often do not report to police (Morgan & Oudekerk, 2019) and may be hindered in their access to assistance.

In addition to identifying understudied issues, the OVC report emphasizes the need to better understand and support underserved victims. Historically these victims include persons with disabilities, boys and young men of color, American Indian/Alaska Native peoples, LGBTQ victims, and undocumented immigrants (OVC, 2013). These groups also are understudied in the area of family and intimate partner violence. In the case of family violence, this list also extends to those who might be unable or unwilling to report their victimization to the police or other officials, such as children and elder persons who may be unable to report due to their dependency on the perpetrator.

Important changes to data have occurred over the past decade that help support these basic monitoring needs to study victims of intimate and family violence and underserved victims. We consider these changes that inform intimate partner violence first and then family violence with a focus on abuse of children and elders.

Changes in Intimate Partner and Family Violence Data

Monitoring levels of intimate partner and family violence as well as subgroups most at risk require ongoing data collections that contain incident details such as the nature of the violence, victim-offender relationship, and sociodemographic characteristics about the victim and the perpetrator. Details such as reporting to the police, seeking informal and formal help and obtaining victim services also inform policy responses and budgetary investment. We focus on the changes that have occurred over the past 10 years in national and ongoing data sources because they offer the capacity to reveal changes over time for the risk of intimate and family violence and responses to these forms of victimization and thereby address some of the issues in the OVC report.² While we emphasize national data collected under federal agencies auspices, we note a few specialized data sources relevant to children and family violence.

Intimate Partner Violence

In terms of recent data innovation, the study of intimate partner violence (IPV) has focused on challenging the paradigm of IPV limited to cis-female, heterosexual victims (Edwards et al., 2015). This change tracks with legislative evolution exemplified by the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). VAWA and its definition of IPV highlight an expanding view that includes recognition of male and LGBTQ IPV victims (Sacco, 2019). As with the OVC report, VAWA also recognized the need to support victims from diverse backgrounds. In 2013, VAWA included non-discrimination provisions for grant programs and victim services “to ensure that victims are not denied services and are not subjected to discrimination based on actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or disability” (Sacco, 2019, p. 18).

The past 10 years also have witnessed substantial changes to gather more comprehensive information about IPV victims and their need for services. The three data collections examined here are the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program’s National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS), and the National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey (NISVS). The NCVS and UCR inform our national estimates of crime as well as IPV, and over the past 10 years, both have undergone revisions in this area. The NISVS collection started in 2010 with the specific intent to generate IPV rates and support research. The UCR data are particularly important because they are used as part of the formula for determining how federal justice assistance grant funds are allocated to states, however OVC funds are generally not directly tied to UCR statistics (see Lauritsen & Cork, 2016, pp. 92–94).

The following discussion considers the three data collections separately. Each description begins with a brief overview of how the collection facilitates the study of IPV and how each defines IPV with regard to the specific types of intimate relationships and forms of violence. For the NCVS and NIBRS, our description emphasizes changes that occurred over the past 10 years to better understand IPV, especially understudied victims and issues. As NISVS was developed during the past decade, we discuss the differences between it and the NCVS and UCR to study IPV. Each concludes with a summary of the strengths and limitations for studying IPV. Table 1 provides a comparison of all three data collections.

Table 1.

Comparing Data Sources for Studying Intimate Partner Violence.

	NIBRS	NCVS	NISVS
Purpose	Gather and publish counts of crime incidents recorded by state and local law enforcement agencies	Measure annual levels of the extent and nature of violent and property crime incidents	Measure lifetime and annual levels of sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence
Responsible Agency	Federal Bureau of Investigation	Bureau of Justice Statistics	Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Type of Data	Administrative records from law enforcement agencies	Survey data, computer assisted in-person and telephone interviews	Survey data, computer assisted telephone interview
Available Years	Ongoing since 1991. National collection beginning January 2021	Ongoing since 1992. Precursor National Crime Survey (since 1973)	Ongoing since 2010.
Sampling Information	Not applicable	Probability sample of household addresses; eligible respondents include all persons ages 12 and older in household	Random-digit-dial telephone sample (landlines and cell-phones); eligible respondents include those ages 18 and older
Response Rate	2018 participating agencies = 39% of all eligible agencies (N = 7,283); population coverage = 36%	2018 = 73% of households (total N = 1,51,055) and 82% of persons in these households (total N = 2,42,928)	2015 = 26% (total N = 10,081)
Categories for Domestic Violence	Family (parent, sibling, child, grandparent/child, in-law, step-child, step-sibling, other family member)	Family (parent/step-parent, child/step-child, brother/sister, other family member)	Family (parent/step/foster parent, sibling/step-sibling, brother/sister-in-law, uncle/aunt, cousin, grandparent, child/step-child, grandchild/step-grandchild, other family)
Categories for Domestic Violence	Intimate partner (see below)	Intimate partner (see below)	Intimate partner (see below)
Definition of Intimate Partner	Spouse, ex-spouse, common-law spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend (after 1/2019, ex-boyfriend/girlfriend)	Spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, ex-boyfriend/girlfriend	Current or former spouse, live-in partner, fiancé/fiancée, boyfriend/girlfriend, data partner, someone seeing, someone having sex with
Definition of Sexual Orientation	Collected as “homosexual relationship” in victim-offender relationship category through 2018. After 1/2019, inferred from intimate relationship and victim and offender reported sex.	As of 2017, self-identified, separate questions for sexual orientation and gender identity	As of 2010, self-identified, single question for sexual orientation and gender identity
Additional Data Features	Incident-based perspective on crimes known to the police. Includes information about arrests. Jurisdiction and other geographic summaries possible.	Incident-based perspective on victimization experiences, whether reported to police, victim service use, and other features and outcomes of incident.	Public-health orientation on victims and victimization context; perpetrator-based, ongoing duration perspective. Items on help-seeking, disclosure, and victim service use.

National crime victimization survey

The NCVS collects self-report survey data about individuals’ experiences with nonlethal violence, including victim and offender characteristics, numerous details about the nature of the incident and injuries suffered, and post-incident socio-emotional difficulties. Victims also are asked whether the victimization was reported to the police, resulted in medical care, and whether the victim accessed services. NCVS data are gathered in-person and via telephone by the Census Bureau using a nationally representative sampling frame of persons ages 12 and older.

The NCVS measures violent victimization by asking respondents a series of screening questions to discern whether anyone has attacked or threatened them in the prior 6 months.³ The screening questions include a variety of situational cues about the places in which these types of events may have occurred (e.g., at home, work, school) as well as potential types of offenders such as a relative or family member. Each incident elicited through the screening is followed-up with a series of questions to capture the details about the nature of the threat and attack incidents, how well the victim knew the offender, and other items. The offender categories used to define IPV include a spouse, ex-spouse, boyfriend/girlfriend, or ex-boyfriend/girlfriend. Family violence is captured by the offender categories of parent or step-parent, own child or step-child, brother/sister, or other relative. The structure of the NCVS data allow for the study of physically assaultive and threatened IPV and family violence.

Over the past decade, several changes to the NCVS expand its estimation of IPV rates. First, new questions allow for the identification of four population subgroups. Using questions adopted from the American Community Survey, the NCVS can now assess whether a person has certain disabilities (Harrell, 2017). Multiple new items also measure sexual orientation and gender identity among persons age 16 and older (Truman et al., 2019). In addition, the NCVS added questions inquiring about a respondent’s citizenship status (born US citizen, naturalized US citizen, or non-US citizen) and veteran status (veteran or active duty service; Morgan & Truman, 2018). Because the NCVS interviews all household members ages 12 and older, these new items make it possible to study not only whether those in a particular category (such as veterans or non-US citizens) have higher IPV rates, but whether others living with persons in these categories do so as well.

Second, changes to the questionnaire also identify new information about victim harms and needs. Beginning in late 2008, persons who report violent victimization are asked about the socio-emotional impact that resulted from their victimization, including physical and emotional symptoms, relationship problems, and problems with work, school, or peers (Langton & Truman, 2014). The emotional and physical symptoms list includes more than a dozen specific items. Initial analyses of these items suggest that victims of family and intimate partner violence report higher levels of distress than do victims of violence at the hands of strangers, friends, or acquaintances (Langton & Truman, 2014). Use of these items along with other data available in the NCVS (such as victim services access, medical care, and reporting to police, and the new sub-population measures) allow for important ongoing insights into how to improve responses to victimization and underserved populations.

Third, the large boost in NCVS sample size from 2016 to 2018 is an important improvement that improves monitoring levels and changes in victimization rates over time. Sample size is critical for estimating statistically rare events, such as IPV, with reasonable precision, particularly among subgroups. This boost in sample (resulting in approximately 243,000 completed NCVS interviews in 2018) also permits the estimation of victimization rates for the 22 largest states based on 3-year rolling averages (Bureau of Justice Statistics, n.d.). Because the 22 largest states account for nearly 80% of the US population, the enhanced NCVS data have the possibility of greatly improving our understanding of family and intimate partner violence. These data will reveal, for the first time, whether levels of reporting to the police and use of victim services varies significantly across the largest states and can help states plan and respond better to victims because they will have information about their own levels and victim needs. States have conducted their own victimization surveys in the past, but such surveys often struggle to obtain the sample representativeness and response rates available in the NCVS. These state-level surveys also require a large investment of state-level budgetary resources that may be better used for direct services to victims.

As with all data sources, the NCVS has limitations, and the importance of these limitations depends on the issue under consideration. Some issues require counts of incidents during a specific time period, while others require counts of unique victims. Counting unique incidents of IPV and the details of these victimizations is methodologically challenging for all surveys. To minimize subject burden, the NCVS uses a “series” victimization protocol in which the details of the most recent incident are obtained when victims indicate that the incidents occurred six or more times in the past 6 months and they are unable to report the details for each incident. This questionnaire strategy necessarily introduces error into some estimates—for example, the percentage of IPV reported to police—because such details are recorded only on the most recent incident. It is also important to note that reporting the number of times IPV incidents occurred can be a particularly difficult recall task for victims, especially when violence is a common and chronic experience in their lives. For these victims, the answer provided is best considered an estimate of the number of physical threats and attacks they suffered. If the issue requires an ongoing count of victims—for example, to help plan for the number of persons with service needs—counting and memory recall challenges are much less problematic.

Uniform crime reporting program—national incident-based reporting system

Complementing the survey-based crime estimates from the NCVS are those from the UCR and its collection of data from police. Since the 1980s, the FBI has sought to modernize the UCR from an aggregate-level count to an incident-based collection of crimes known to police (NIBRS). NIBRS captures detailed information relevant to the study of IPV such as demographic information on victims and offenders, victim-offender relationship, incident location, weapons, injury, time of day, and arrest. As individual law enforcement agencies report this information, NIBRS data allow for comparisons across jurisdictions and areas. Over the past 10 years, the FBI has worked to improve the NIBRS data collection. Three such changes benefit IPV research: a push for national coverage, refinements in victim-offender relationship codes, and the addition of a coding flag for domestic violence offenses. The types of intimate relationships captured in NIBRS include current and former spouses, common law spouse, and current/former boy/girlfriend. The types of violence include fatal violence (homicide) as well as non-fatal violence such as rape/sexual assault, aggravated assault, simple assault, and intimidation.⁴

Recently, the biggest change occurring with UCR-NIBRS data is its transition to a national data collection system that is fully incident-based by January 1, 2021 (Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI], 2016). Since NIBRS data started being collected, one of the main limitations is the lack of nationwide coverage and law enforcement agencies that do participate are not a nationally representative sample (Addington, 2009). A few of the reasons for the slow conversion include various resource barriers and a lack of external deadlines. In 2016, the FBI decided to sunset the aggregate-level summary reporting system and effectively mandate NIBRS participation as of January 1, 2021 (FBI, 2016). This change can benefit the study of IPV by providing a national source of these crimes reported to police and allow comparisons across jurisdictions of various sizes as well as to increase the number of available cases for analyzing rare victim populations. This change, though, is expected to extend beyond the 2021 deadline despite a 5-year notice and targeted funding to do so via the National Crime Statistics Exchange (NCS-X). In late-2020, the FBI estimated that at least 78% of law enforcement agencies would be submitting NIBRS data by the beginning of 2021 (FBI, 2020). Currently the exact date is unknown as to when all agencies will submit NIBRS data.

The FBI also has made substantive changes over the past decade relevant to studying IPV. Two relationship code changes occurred. Prior to 2019, the designation “homosexual relationship” was collected as an option for victim-offender relationship. This practice ended to allow for the specific intimate relationship to be collected for same-sex couples (FBI, 2017) and direct comparisons across same- and opposite-sex couples (Addington, 2020). Another change was the inclusion of former boy/girlfriends as a victim-offender relationship (FBI, 2018).

A second substantive change was the creation of a domestic and family violence flag in 2019 to identify these offenses for purposes of government publications (including an incident-based Crime in the United States annual report) and online data analysis programs (such as the FBI’s Crime Data Explorer; FBI, 2018). The NIBRS definition of domestic and family violence includes violent and property crimes committed by intimates (current and former spouses and romantic partners) and parents or guardians of the victim (FBI, 2018). In addition to flagging domestic and family violence incidents, this code replaces the antiquated “lovers’ quarrel” designation, which had been used as a circumstance code for homicides and aggravated assaults.

These changes will give the UCR-NIBRS data collection some advantages for studying IPV with regard to underserved victims that were the focus of OVC’s Visions 21 Report. NIBRS benefits from having millions of cases in its sample that permit capturing sub-populations including same-sex intimate partners, male victims of IPV, and specific racial groups. NIBRS also includes law enforcement agencies from a range of localities including rural areas, whose populations are often more difficult to study.

The UCR-NIBRS data, though, have certain limitations regarding IPV. As noted above, one is the conversion to a fully incident-based collection system. Another concern arises with regard to missing data in NIBRS as certain incident details may be unknown to police (Addington, 2009). While IPV data are not immune to this problem, information such as victim-offender relationship is likely to be known for non-fatal incidents between intimates. A third limitation is attributable to the nature of police data. To be included in the UCR, the crime must be reported to and recorded by police. IPV tends to be underreported to police, which is likely exacerbated among underserved groups, including persons of color (especially Black individuals), the LGBTQ community, and immigrant groups (e.g., Brown & Herman, 2015; Decker et al., 2019). These individuals often report having greater concerns and fear about calling or involving police than white individuals. In addition, individuals who reside in public housing or rentals also hesitate to call the police for IPV given their fear of eviction if police called and they are labeled a nuisance tenant (Arnold, 2019). Although eviction policies have changed in recent years to exempt IPV victims, the fear may remain.

National intimate partner and sexual violence survey

The third collection we examine is NISVS. Unlike the NCVS and UCR-NIBRS, which are crime data collected under the auspices of the US Department of Justice, NISVS is characterized as a health survey and sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Injury Prevention. Rather than being an omnibus survey, NISVS focuses on only three types of violence (IPV, sexual violence and stalking). NISVS started in 2010 and has been collected in 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2015 (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], n.d.). The CDC’s initial intention was to generate national and state level estimates, but efforts to obtain state-level estimates ended with the 2015 data collection (Smith et al., 2018). To be eligible to participate in the survey, respondents must be at least 18 years old, non-institutionalized, English- or Spanish-speaking, and accessible by telephone (Breiding et al., 2014). Sample sizes have varied from over 18,000 adults in 2010 to over 10,000 in 2015.

Because NISVS was specifically designed to study IPV, it collects data on a wider range of relationships and types of violence than the NCVS or UCR-NIBRS. Relationships include spouse, live-in partner, fiancé/fiancée, boy/girlfriend, dating partner as well as casual relationships of someone the victim was seeing or hooking up (just having sex) with. NISVS collects relationship status at the time the IPV first started as well as the last experience reported. As with the NCVS, NISVS collects sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) information. In the 2010 iteration, a single question was used to collect sexual orientation, which asked if the respondent identifies as heterosexual or straight, gay or lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered. Victim gender is collected using a binary measure: self-reported female and self-reported male.

With regard to types of IPV covered, NISVS includes physical violence and psychological aggression, which is more extensive than the NCVS or UCR-NIBRS. Physical violence includes being slapped, pushed or shoved, being hit or kicked, having hair pulled, being slammed against something, choked, beaten, burned, or having a knife or gun used. Psychological aggression includes expressive aggression (such as belittling or name calling) and coercive control (such as threatening violence to another or demanding to know whereabouts). NISVS also collects sexual violence and stalking perpetrated by an intimate partner. NISVS collects data using both 12-month and lifetime reference periods.

In contrast to the NCVS and UCR-NIBRS, NISVS has a public health orientation rather than a crime orientation and this guides how it collects information. NISVS uses behaviorally specific questions and graduated consent (Breiding et al., 2014). In addition to providing lifetime prevalence estimates of victimization, NISVS also provides information about the nature of violence associated with specific perpetrators. The perpetrator orientation is in contrast with the criminal incident approach of the NCVS and UCR where each act of violence is counted. Focusing on the perpetrator allows NISVS to collect broader information about IPV, including details about its duration, and permits some examination of how different forms of violence co-occur at the hands of a specific offender.

NISVS also collects extensive information about responses to IPV including disclosure to formal and informal sources and victim services. Disclosure behaviors are collected for seven specific sources: police, doctor/nurse, psychologist/counselor, crisis hotline operator, friend, family member, and romantic/sexual partner. Victims also are asked how helpful the disclosure source was. Victims are asked about their use of medical care, housing, community services, victim’s advocate services, and legal services, and are also asked about any barriers to obtaining services they needed but could not obtain. Compared to NCVS and UCR-NIBRS, a unique value of NISVS is its information on disclosure and detail on the use of varied services. These details combine to allow insights on victim sub-population access to services as well as barriers for all IPV victims for obtaining needed services.

As with the other data sources, NISVS also has limitations. NISVS has suffered from low response rates (including 26% in 2015 [CDC, n.d.]), which prompt concerns about sample bias, particularly in telephone-based samples (Groves & Harris-Kojetin, 2017). NISVS also has revised its questions, and these changes make comparisons over time difficult. In terms of understudied victims and concerns of the OVC Visions 21 report, even though NISVS uses a fairly large sample size, it is still limited in its ability to identify certain populations such as trans* individuals and sexual minority individuals of color. While NISVS supports studying IPV as a continuous condition, it is limited in its ability to connect a particular response or harm with an IPV incident. An additional limitation of the NISVS data is the lack of access to recent years of data. While CDC reports have published rates from NISVS through the 2015 collection year, only 2010 data are available to researchers via archives such as ICPSR.

Family Violence Data: Children and the Elderly

In addition to recent improvements to IPV data collection, the past 10 years have seen increased attention to the need to inform victims of family violence, particularly abuse involving the youngest and oldest family members who are the most vulnerable and may have the most difficulty accessing help. Recent changes to the NCVS, UCR-NIBRS and NISVS also are relevant to collecting data about these victims. Specific changes to these three, and other ongoing specialized data collections are discussed below.

Child victims of family violence

Data on family violence against young children (less than 12 years of age) can be found in multiple sources including survey data and administrative records. Of the three data collections described above, the UCR-NIBRS allows for the study of child victims. The NIBRS incident details include victim age and victim-offender relationship status, which include family relationships (see Table 1) as well as the current changes toward a national incident-based data collection and the flag for family violence incidents. Children under age 12 are not captured in the NCVS, and youth under 18 are not eligible for NISVS. One survey that focuses on child victims of family violence is the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV), which has been collected three times (2014, 2011, 2008; Finkelhor et al., 2015). NatSCEV is a survey designed to measure lifetime and 1-year prevalence estimates of exposure to different forms of violence among youth less than 18, including young children (for whom parents or guardians answer the questions). These data offer an important source of information about children’s direct experiences with violence (and witnessing violence) in their homes and elsewhere, and are unique given the detailed attention to addressing the methodological difficulties associated with obtaining data from young children (Finkelhor, 2011). In addition to physical forms of violence, the data also measure experiences such as bullying, neglect, psychopathologies, and children’s exposure to family and friend homicide. The Fragile Families and Wellbeing Study (FFWS) provides another example of a data collection that considers the effect of exposure to violence including IPV as well as experiences with “harsh parenting” (such as physical punishments; McLanahan et al., 2014). FFWS is a birth cohort study of 5000 children born after 2000 in large US cities. Questions are asked of the parents after the children are born and at ages one, three, five and nine. Both NatSCEV and FFWS are continuing studies, however it is unclear when the next administration of NatSCEV data will occur, as development of the fourth survey is ongoing (Finkelhor, personal communication). FFWS is scheduled for its seventh wave data collection in 2020 (https://fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/documentation).

Elder victims of family violence

All three of the federal data collections described with regard to IPV also can inform family violence against the elderly. As noted above, NIBRS collects victim age and family relationship details, and the changes to the NCVS allows identification of subpopulations to better inform family violence involving elders among immigrant, LGBT, and disabled communities. Limitations of the NCVS and other survey data for studying elder victims of family violence are associated with the degree to which elder persons suffer from cognitive or other physical disabilities that may make them incapable of participating in the survey. Proxy interviews may be provided on their behalf, however it is reasonable to suspect that the proxy interviewee may not be willing to report family violence against elder persons, particularly if they are the person committing the violence. NISVS also provides information on elder abuse. During the first collection year of NISVS, it included specific questions for adults over the age of 70 regarding psychological and physical abuse (Rosay & Mulford, 2017). Currently it is unclear if the elder abuse supplemental questions continue to be included in the NISVS survey, which limits its use as an ongoing source of elder abuse information.

Summary and Conclusion

To summarize how recent changes to the NCVS, UCR-NIBRS, and NISVS can inform our study of intimate and family violence, we return to the framework provided by OVC’s Visions 21 report. While many policy-relevant issues can be addressed with these recent changes, we focus on how these updates improve identifying and monitoring intimate and family violence and can assist victims in recovering from such violence.

In terms of identifying, monitoring, and responding to intimate partner and family violence, the most extensive changes occurred with the inclusion of measures about LGBT status and information on victim services especially in the context of IPV. By incorporating SOGI questions, surveys like the NCVS and NISVS support research to understand intimate and family violence involving sexual minority individuals. National data can now be used to estimate the rates at which LGBT individuals experience family and intimate partner violence compared to non-LGBT individuals, as well as assess victims’ interactions with police (Bender & Lauritsen, 2021). In addition, these data collections can be used in complementary ways. Using the NCVS, researchers can compare LGBT domestic violence reported to police to the new NIBRS rates and assess the similarity in the trends and patterns to provide a broader picture about who does and does not report domestic violence to the police, and why.

NISVS questions highlight the ability of national data collections to confirm findings from independent studies regarding the tendency for IPV victims to disclose to friends rather than police or trained professionals such as counselors. NISVS data also provides information on the use of a variety of services as well as follow up questions about the helpfulness and challenge to obtain services. Continued analyses of these questions can help inform new items about victim services use, access, and satisfaction into future iterations of surveys like the NCVS which can help reveal how best to reach underserved victims.

While the data improvements noted here provide much needed insights to the study of intimate and family violence for purposes of improving and expanding access to victim services, it is not inevitable that they do so. Recent history has shown that support for victim services can be inconsistent. In fiscal year 2015, funding available for victim services from the Crime Victims Fund (CVF) increased dramatically (Warnken & Lauritsen, 2019).

A year later, OVC issued a new set of rules concerning the use of CVF federal grant monies that expanded the definitions of allowable victim services and encouraged attention to supporting the needs of victims who had previously been neglected (OVC, 2016). By fiscal year 2019 however, the political tides had turned and federal funding for victim services dropped below 2015–2016 numbers (Warnken & Lauritsen, 2019). This change serves as a reminder that the impact of victim research will be limited if resources intended to help prevent violence or help victims heal are reduced or unavailable.

In addition, future data improvements can make national data even more helpful. For example, feminist research has shown that women’s economic dependency is associated with partner violence help-seeking behavior (e.g., Kaukinen, 2004), and that household economic vulnerabilities are important correlates of intimate partner violence (e.g., Fox & Benson, 2006). National data for these, and other factors gleaned from feminist research, combined with macro-level data on local service availability could greatly help inform domestic violence policy responses. Feminist critiques of existing data prompted many of the important changes to our national social indicators of IPV and family violence over the past decade, and these same insights are needed to ensure that the data continue to be of use to the public and that fiscal resources are responsive to victims’ needs.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Lynn A. Addington

Janet L. Lauritsen

Notes

Author Biographies

Lynn A. Addington is a professor in the Department of Justice, Law and Criminology at American University in Washington, D.C. Her research focuses on fatal and non-fatal violent victimization with an emphasis on policy responses to prevent violence and serve victims. Her work also considers ways to better connect research with practitioners. In 2016, she received AU’s top award for faculty research. Her publications have appeared in a range of outlets including the Journal of Quantitative Criminology, Justice Quarterly, and Trauma, Violence and Abuse.

Janet L. Lauritsen is Curators’ distinguished professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Missouri – St. Louis. Her research focuses on the causes and consequences of victimization, the social and historical contexts of crime and victimization, and quantitative research methodologies. She served as Chair of the Panel on Modernizing the Nation’s Crime Statistics for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine from 2014 to 2018, and as Co-Editor of the journal Criminology from 2018 through 2020. She was named fellow of the American Society of Criminology in 2013.

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