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October 28, 2013: Letter to Katie Ray-Jones, President of The National Domestic Violence Hotline

 

Recently we reviewed your Fact Sheet found at http://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/statistics/. We compared the information found in your Fact Sheet against 10 objective criteria. Unfortunately, we found your Fact Sheet met only 3 of the 10 criteria.

Summary Sheet
Organization: The National DV Hotline

F
Name of president:  Katie Ray-Jones
Dept. of Justice funding (2011): * 0 records
URL of Fact Sheet: http://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/statistics/
Date of review:  10/25/13
Fact Sheet Grade:
QUESTIONS YES NO NOTES
Totals 3 7
1. Does the Fact Sheet list at least three of the causes and risk factors for Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) identified by the US Centers for Disease Control, such as substance abuse, marital instability, and psychological factors? X
2. Does the Fact Sheet indicate that men and women engage in IPV at approximately equal rates? X They say it this way: Nearly half of all women and men in the United States have experienced psychological aggression by an intimate partner in their lifetime (48.4% and 48.8%, respectively).[vii]
3. Does the Fact Sheet indicate that about half of all IPV is mutual? X
4. Does the Fact Sheet indicate that female initiation of IPV is the leading cause of a woman becoming injured by her partner? X
5. Does the Fact Sheet indicate that about two-thirds of persons injured by IPV are female? X
6. Does the Fact Sheet indicate that rates of IPV have fallen substantially in recent decades? X
7. Does the Fact Sheet include any mention of the problem of false allegations, and how false allegations divert resources from victims? X
8. Does the Fact Sheet indicate that crime surveys (e.g., NCVS) and criminal justice statistics (e.g., arrests) are not valid indicators of overall levels of IPV? X
9. Does the Fact Sheet avoid use of imprecise terminology such as “battering”? X
10. Are the majority (> 50%)  of the references recent, i.e., published since 2005? X
* Source: Federal Audit Clearinghouse: https://harvester.census.gov/fac/