The National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs --NCAVP-- has released its 2003 domestic violence report. NCAVP is a network of 27 anti-violence groups that monitor and respond to incidents of bias, domestic, HIV-related, and other types of violence affecting the LGBT community. The cities and states participating in this latest report include Chicago; Cleveland; Colorado; Columbus, Ohio; Connecticut; Los Angeles; Massachusetts; Minnesota; New York City; and San Francisco.
Findings included the following:
— The total number of anti-LGBT incidents reported to NCAVP increased 8% last year, from 1,903 incidents in 2002 to 2,051 incidents in 2003. Almost in tandem, the number of victims tracked by NCAVP member programs rose 9%, from 2,183 in 2002 to 2,384 in 2003.
— There was a slight decrease in the proportion of incidents involving assault. Unfortunately, most other categories of offense showed marked increases. For instance, the number of murders rose 80%, from 10 in 2002 to 18 in 2003. The number of incidents involving sexual assault or rape climbed 20%, primarily as a result of continued attention to better tracking, services and outreach by NCAVP programs regarding this particular type of violence.
— In a demonstration of how exhaustively categories were researched, the report even deals with the types of weapons used in attacks. Weapon use in anti-LGBT incidents increased slightly --+2%- and there were sizeable changes in the type of weapons used, with both increases and decreases in key categories. There were decreases in the number of incidents where offenders used projectiles --33%- or vehicles --58%, but there were troubling increases in the use of items such as firearms +72%.
There were also interesting results in the Chicago regional survey:
— During 2003, 65 domestic violence survivors accessed services at Center on Halsted--formerly known as Horizons Community Services-- Anti-Violence Project, a 12% decrease from 2002 when it served 74 survivors.
— Of the 65 survivors, 15% were African-American, 15% were Latino, and 31% were white. Thirty-nine percent were unidentified.
— Most people who accessed services reported intimate partner violence, rather than care-giver, roommate abuse, elderly abuse, or child/family abuse.
In its report, NCAVP stresses its hope that they expect that these findings 'will not only draw attention to the incidents and trends it documents, but that it will also highlight the need for more comprehensive responses to bias violence at the community level and assist NCAVP in advocating for those creating such efforts.'
To get the full report, please visit www.coavp.org/2004/ncavp_2003_report.pdf.