Decorate your porch purple and/or change your porch light to purple.
Take a picture and post it at https://facebook.com/events/s/light-the-way/341894378103760/
!!!!! A prize will be issued!!!!!
Domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats, economic, and emotional/psychological abuse. The frequency and severity of domestic violence varies dramatically.
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE IN WEST VIRGINIA
● 39.4% of West Virginia women1 and 36.3% of West Virginia men2 experience intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate partner stalking in their lifetimes.
● 47.5% of women in West Virginia will experience rape or attempted rape by a current or intimate partner in their lifetimes.3
● In fiscal year 2020, there were at least 19 domestic violence homicides in West Virginia. 75% were committed with firearms.4
● In 2019, West Virginia ranked 16th in the nation for the rate of women murdered by men.5
● On one day in 2020, domestic violence programs reported serving 271 victims of domestic violence in one
day. In addition, 164 hotline calls were received, averaging 7 contacts per hour.6
● On this same day in 2020, 51 requests for services were unmet due to lack of resources.7
● As of December 31, 2020, West Virginia had submitted no domestic violence misdemeanor convictions or
protective order records to the NICS Index.8
● Between 2006 and 2015, there were 1,965 active protection orders in the National Crime Information
Center for West Virginia, 2 of which had a disqualifying Brady Indicator.9
DID YOU KNOW?
• 1 in 3 women and 1 in 4 men in the United States have experienced some form of physical violence by an intimate partner.10
• On a single day in 2020, domestic violence hotlines received 21,321 calls, an average of almost 15 calls every minute.11
• In 2018, domestic violence accounted for 20% of all violent crime.12
• Abusers’ access to firearms increases the risk of intimate partner femicide by approximately 1,000%.13 When
firearms have been used in the most severe abuse incident, the risk increases 41-fold.14
• 65% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner; 96% of the victims of these crimes are female.15
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE-RELATED FIREARMS LAWS IN WEST VIRGINIA
● West Virginia law prohibits domestic violence misdemeanants, including ‘sexual or intimate partner[s]’ from possessing firearms.16
● Respondents to both ex parte17 and final protective orders, including dating partners, are prohibited from possessing firearms for the duration of the order.
● If the petitioner for an ex parte protective order provides information about firearms in the respondent’s possession, the court must require the respondent to relinquish their firearms.
● When arresting an alleged abuser, law enforcement:
o Must retrieve any weapons used in the abuse and any weapons with which the abuser threatened the victim
o May retrieve any firearms in plain sight or found in a consensual search if necessary to protect the
law enforcement agent(s) or the victim; and
o May retrieve the abuser’s firearms if they are subject to a protective order.
● West Virginia could strengthen its laws by:
o Prohibiting all dating violence and stalking misdemeanants from possessing firearms;
o Requiring prohibited persons to relinquish their firearms upon being prohibited, including codifying
the protective order rule;
o Requiring law enforcement responding to a domestic violence incident to retrieve all fire arms if
requested by the survivor; and
o Require background checks for all firearms sales and transfers.
For more information about firearms-related domestic violence laws in West Virginia, go to https://www.disarmdv.org/state/west-virginia/.
If you are in crisis, contact The National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (7233) or www.TheHotline.org. Please visit the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence’s website at www.ncadv.org for more fact sheets, membership information and valuable resources.
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. (2021).
Domestic violence in West Virginia. www.ncadv.org/files/West-Virginia.pdf
