What Is Domestic Violence?

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The FBI's new data shows domestic violent crime rising, even as overall violent crime falls.

Domestic violence victims are far more likely to be injured than non-domestic victims.

Alcohol is involved at nearly double the rate in domestic incidents compared to non-domestic ones.

Among domestic violence victims, 74.5% were female; among offenders, 77.1% were male.

On June 29, 2022, twenty-year-old Azsia Johnson agreed to meet the father of her three-month-old daughter on Manhattan's Upper East Side. He said he wanted to bring things for the baby. Reluctantly, she agreed.

Johnson had reason to be wary. While six months pregnant, she had filed a domestic violence complaint against him that January. Police documented bruising on her face and scratches on her neck, but he was never arrested. She had sought refuge in a domestic violence shelter.

Still, she wanted her daughter to know her father.

Isaac Argro arrived with no baby supplies, dressed in black, and wearing a ski mask. According to prosecutors, he walked up to Johnson as she pushed their infant in a stroller and shot her once in the head at point-blank range. He later called Johnson's family to ask where the baby was. He also contacted someone Johnson knew and told them they were "next." Argro was indicted for second-degree murder. He is still awaiting trial.

Johnson's mother told reporters her daughter had begged for help. The system had multiple chances to intervene and didn't. Why does this keep happening?

On February 11, 2026, the FBI released five years of data on domestic relationships and violent crime. It's grim. For example, 62.6% of domestic violence victims sustained injuries, compared to 39.1% of non-domestic violence victims. In other words, when the person hurting you is someone you live with, you are significantly more likely to be injured.

Nearly 80% of domestic violence crime incidents occurred in a residence or home. For non-domestic violence, that figure drops to 41%. We tell people to go home where it's safe. For more than a million victims over this five-year period, that's where the danger is.

When I evaluate criminal defendants, I often reconstruct what happened in these rooms. The living spaces become crime scenes that tell a story about proximity, access, and the barriers to escape when the threat shares your address.

What Changes When It's Domestic

The weapons are different. In nonfatal domestic violence incidents, the most common weapons were fists and feet. Only 13.7% of domestic incidents involved a firearm, compared to 32.6% of non-domestic incidents. Domestic violence is about sustained control, not a single transaction. The violence is intimate because the relationship is intimate.

But when firearms are present in domestic situations, victims die. Over this five-year period, there were 11,466 murder victims in domestic relationships. Campbell's landmark Danger Assessment research found that an abused woman with a gun in the home is six times more likely to be killed than other abused women, and that being threatened or assaulted with a firearm increases the risk of death twentyfold. That finding shaped the tool I use in every lethality evaluation I conduct. Azsia Johnson's murder shows us what happens when the warning signs are there, and the system fails to act on them.

Alcohol also plays a larger role than many people realize. The data shows alcohol was reported in 12.5% of domestic incidents, nearly double the 6.6% in non-domestic incidents. Alcohol doesn't cause domestic violence. But it disinhibits, it escalates, and it provides an excuse that keeps victims trapped in cycles of hope and harm.

What Is Domestic Violence?

Take our Anger Management Test

Find a therapist to heal from domestic violence

Among domestic violence victims, 74.5% were female. Among offenders, 77.1% were male. The data is unambiguous about who is overwhelmingly doing the hitting and who is getting hit.

The most common age for both victims and offenders was 32. In non-domestic violence, the most common victim age was 21, and the offender age was 25. Domestic violence victims tend to be older because the violence is embedded in established relationships. It takes time to build the patterns of control, isolation, and escalation that define intimate partner abuse. By 32, many victims have children, shared finances, and lives so entangled with their abuser that leaving means dismantling everything.

Then there's the finding that should keep every forensic professional and law enforcement officer up at night: the most common victim age range for domestic rape was 13 to 16 years old. These victims were most commonly the current or ex-boyfriend/girlfriend (54.4%) or a child of the offender (42.7%). Adolescents are sexually assaulted by people who are supposed to protect them.

A Trend Worth Watching

The percentage of domestic-related violent crime has increased every year, from 25.6% in 2020 to 27.5% in 2024. What makes this especially noteworthy is the context. Virtually every category of violent crime is declining. The national violent crime rate is at its lowest point since 1969. But the proportion of domestic violence keeps growing. The FBI's 2024 annual crime data showed that overall violent crime has dropped 4.5%. Murder is down 14.9%. Even as communities become safer overall, homes within those communities are not.

Some of this likely reflects improved data collection. More agencies are reporting to NIBRS, which captures victim-offender relationships in ways the older system could not. A 2024 Council on Criminal Justice study estimated that actual domestic violence incidents may be 29 to 53 percent higher than what law enforcement data reflects. We may be getting better at counting while still undercounting.

Azsia sought shelter. She tried to protect her children. She is one of 11,466 domestic violence murder victims in this dataset. This FBI report confirms what forensic psychologists, shelter advocates, and emergency room nurses already know: domestic violence is a public safety crisis with a body count. The data is here. The question is what we'll do with it.

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