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Survivors need your voice – help protect survivors and prevent domestic violence, sexual assault, and human trafficking!
Contact the Department of Justice and inquire about narrowed definitions of Domestic Violence and Sexual Violence posted on their website!
While the statutory definitions of domestic and sexual violence have not changed, the DOJ’s website previously included advocacy-based definitions which took into account physical, emotional, and economic abuse, all of which are used by abusers to gain and maintain power and control over victims/survivors. The definitions now posted are more narrow in that they primarily include only cases of violence which would be considered felony or misdemeanor crimes. This ignores everything those of us in the trenches of this work know about power, control, and the cycle of violence.
Abuse rarely starts with physical violence but instead typically escalates and progresses along a continuum. Failing to acknowledge broader patterns of power and control along this progression of violence may impact when or whether a survivor reaches out for help and support, which could increase already staggering numbers of intimate partner homicide. In our nearly forty years of supporting survivors of domestic and sexual violence, we understand that many individuals choose, for multiple and extremely valid reasons, not to report to law enforcement. These descriptions discount and disregard these individuals.
Compare Current and Previous Definitions
Current: Domestic violence is a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, psychological, or technological actions or threats of actions or other patterns of coercive behavior that influence another person within an intimate partner relationship. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.
Source: https://www.justice.gov/ovw/domestic-violence
Previous: We define domestic violence as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20180409111243/https:/www.justice.gov/ovw/domestic-violence
Current: Domestic violence is a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, psychological, or technological actions or threats of actions or other patterns of coercive behavior that influence another person within an intimate partner relationship. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.
Source: https://www.justice.gov/ovw/domestic-violence
Previous: We define domestic violence as a pattern of abusive behavior in any relationship that is used by one partner to gain or maintain power and control over another intimate partner. Domestic violence can be physical, sexual, emotional, economic, or psychological actions or threats of actions that influence another person. This includes any behaviors that intimidate, manipulate, humiliate, isolate, frighten, terrorize, coerce, threaten, blame, hurt, injure, or wound someone.
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20180409111243/https:/www.justice.gov/ovw/domestic-violence
Current: The term “sexual assault” means any nonconsensual sexual act proscribed by Federal, tribal, or State law, including when the victim lacks capacity to consent.
Source: https://www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault#sa
Previous: Sexual assault is any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape.
Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20180406001042/https:/www.justice.gov/ovw/sexual-assault
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