Police-Documented Incidents of Intimate Partner Violence Among Young Women

Abstract

Few studies have examined adolescent victims of intimate partner violence (IPV) whose victimization is reported to the police or the nature of the incidents that led to the police call. This oversight is problematic for healthcare providers, given that overlap between the use of healthcare and police services is high among IPV victims. We assessed the frequency and nature of police-documented incidents of IPV by men against female adolescents aged 15-17 compared with those against young women aged 18-22. A systematic case ascertainment strategy was applied to administrative data from the Compstat database of a large U.S. metropolitan police department to identify IPV incidents with victims <23 years old. We created additional variables from incident narratives and conducted descriptive analyses on the identified cases. During January-September 2005, police filed reports on 1607 incidents of IPV against women <23 years old: one tenth were younger than 18. Although their risk of police-documented IPV was lower, adolescents' experiences of IPV were remarkably similar to those of 18-22-year-olds. As with adult victims, most assaults against adolescents were through bodily force (94.4%) and occurred in a private residence (75.0%). A substantial minority of adolescents were in adultlike relationships: 9.0% were married, 31.3% were cohabiting, and 20.2% had a child in common. A higher proportion of adolescents, however, experienced an aggravated (vs. simple) assault (11.1%) and sustained visible injuries (12.1%). The commonalities between adolescent and young women's experiences of IPV regarding the nature of the assault, observed injuries, and relationship to assailants have important implications for policy and practice. Findings suggest that routine screening for IPV should begin in adolescence to help prevent future abuse and injury.