The Murder Paradox: Working At The Speed Of Hate
This decade marks a terrible transition point in our society's effort to curb the trend of Intimate Partner Homicides (IPH). For the first time in history, the IPH rate of women of all classes is now higher than the IPH rate of all classes of men. Despite spending tens of billions of dollars over a thirty-year period from a vast array of funding sources, both private and public, from the local to the federal level to protect women from violence and provide service to those who have been victimized, the IPH victimization rate of the largest victim class has increased.
All of the valiant people who have fought tirelessly to put an end to partner violence should sit down and take a brief, but well deserved breath. It is the position of many knowledgeable, objective persons that it is time for our society to accept and admit that despite all the efforts of these heroic people and the billions of dollars spent our domestic violence intervention methods are not effective and in some victim classes, have been counter-productive.
Over the years, assorted presentations of the statistical analysis of the IPH trends have played tricks on public perception due to advocacy groups playing tricks with the statistical data to create their own reality. The saddest part of this story is; after thirty years they have actually created their own reality and as a result in some victim classes more women are being murdered by their intimate partners.
Review of the aggregate of all IPH victim classes leaves the appearance that we have done a great job combating this problem (See Figure 1).[1]