"BEYOND STATISTICS:
Lethal Domestic And Sexual Violence
Against Women In Kansas"
A REPORT BY KCSDV
October 2006
Backgrounder
This report chronicles lethal and near-lethal domestic and sexual violence against women in Kansas happening between August 2004 and August 2006, according to media reports. All information for the report is based on information as it appeared in the media. The number of incidents found in the media may or may not represent the total number of murders and attempted murders of women related to domestic and sexual violence during the two-year-period.
KCSDV acknowledges the work of the Governor's Domestic Violence Fatality Review Board, created in October 2004 by order of Governor Kathleen Sebelius. Across the nation, domestic violence fatality review boards are intended as an avenue to help professionals and systems better understand how and why a fatality occurred in the hopes that we can learn important lessons and prevent future deaths. KCSDV anticipates that the Board's work will lead to recommendations that will help us to better intervene before a fatality occurs. KCSDV shares the Board's core beliefs that every death is preventable and that we must work together to make this belief a reality.
- The following information guided KCSDV during its creation of the report:
Definition of Domestic & Sexual Violence
Domestic violence is a pattern of abusive and coercive behavior used to gain power and control over an intimate partner or former intimate partner. Domestic violence perpetrators use a variety of legal and illegal tactics to establish a system of dominance known as power and control. Tactics can include both physical and sexual violence. Sexual violence includes a broad range of sexual contact using coercion or force. This report only includes lethal sexual violence.
National Data on Domestic & Sexual Violence
Women are at significantly greater risk of domestic and sexual violence than men, according to many national studies by government entities, including the National Institute for Justice, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Because domestic and sexual violence is gendered in nature and women are much more at risk of being victims of such violence, this report highlights violence that women face in their intimate relationships and in their communities.
- The incidents of murder, or lethal violence, outlined in this report obviously include those women who were killed during an incident of sexual or domestic violence. Whether they were raped, beaten or terrorized before their deaths, each of these women died at the hands of a perpetrator who was committing acts of extreme violence against her.
- The report also includes incidents of attempted murder of women. In determining what should be included in the attempted murder category, KCSDV included only those incidents in which charges of attempted murder were brought against the perpetrator. Incidents involving other lethality factors-actions thought to increase the lethality of domestic and sexual violence such as kidnapping, stalking, the use of firearms, and hostage-taking-were only included in the attempted murder category when charges of attempted murder were brought against the perpetrator. Therefore, this attempted murder category is not inclusive of all incidents of violence in which the victim's life was put in jeopardy.
- Because the broad-reaching impact of domestic violence on our communities cannot adequately be illustrated by the number of women murdered during domestic violence incidents, we have included additional information below about how other people, such as bystanders and law enforcement, have been affected by lethal and near-lethal domestic violence. For example, in one near-lethal act of violence against a woman, a law enforcement officer lost his life and another was seriously injured.
Below is a summary of some of the other violence witnessed or experienced by women, men and children throughout Kansas during a two-year period.
Domestic Violence-Related Deaths and Injuries of Law Enforcement Responders
1 Death
5 Attempted murders
Domestic Violence-Related Standoffs
Law enforcement responded to nine domestic violence-related standoffs, in Carbondale, Great Bend, Herington, Lafontaine, Liberal, Newton, Olathe, Wichita, and Winfield.
9 Standoffs
12 People held hostage during standoffs
Attempted Murders of Bystanders
5 Family Members
3 Friends
Domestic Violence-Related Deaths of Perpetrators
7 Suicides
1 Attempted suicide
2 Perpetrators killed by law enforcement officers responding to domestic violence-related incidents
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